Oscar Piastri confirmed his position on the Japanese GP after McLaren refused a driver swap during the race.
Piastri was left far from impressed in Suzuka, after a poor qualifying relegated him to a frustrating race. In an afternoon that featured almost no overtakes, Piastri could not unleash his true pace to challenge for victory. Calls for a swap between him and team-mate Lando Norris were rejected, and he finished a frustrating third.
Stating after the race that he would speak to McLaren about the strategy in Suzuka, he has now clarified his position.
Speaking on media day at the Bahrain GP, Piastri said the team had analysed the data and reached a conclusion on if he could have taken the win.
“Qualifying ahead of Max was probably the key to that. I mean, we looked through it. I think it was pretty clear to see that you needed a very big pace advantage to overtake on Sunday.
“The best way to overcome that was, like I said, qualifying a bit better. But I think even in the race, we were pretty limited with what we could do.
The final conclusion for Piastri and McLaren
Piastri was resolute about the all-important question of whether he could have won in Suzuka.
“We’ve spoken through a lot of the potential different scenarios we could have found ourselves in and what we actually could have done differently.
“And I think the conclusion from all of those was there was either a big element of risk with not much chance of reward. So I think there’s still some things we could have done a little bit differently to try. And I think as a team we acknowledge that.
“But also, just putting into perspective how early we are in the season and not giving away points unnecessarily to people behind us was important as well. So yeah, we’ve gone through a lot of things, but ultimately I think our conclusion was: make sure you qualify where you should be.
Will Oscar Piastri change his approach after Japan?
When asked if Red Bull’s surprise win in Japan changes his outlook, Piastri took a pragmatic approach.
“I don’t think it changes much. I think we have the quickest car at the moment. But our advantage is not enough to be careless and kind of lay back and not execute as best as you can.
“We saw Melbourne was a very strong weekend for us, but we also got the most out of the car and both of us felt we drove very well.
“I think China in the Sprint—Sprint quali, Lando went on pole—and I think China and Japan have both shown that it doesn’t take much to go wrong for us to not be at the front.
“We have an advantage in the race for sure, but in qualifying you have to still be on it because the gap is not much still.
“As we saw in Japan, Max put in a good performance and it was enough to be better than us. So I think that’s just another demonstration that it’s going to be tight the whole year and we’ve got to be on our best form.
Can Oscar Piastri win in Bahrain?
The Australian refused to speculate on whether the heat of Bahrain will play to strengths of the McLaren MCL38.
He did however admit, that track position in Bahrain could be key once again this weekend.
“Hard to know. I think Melbourne, especially on the Inters, was a very good race and a good show of pace. But like you said, managing the tyres—I think Japan, if we had track position, potentially the race could have looked quite different.
“We’ll have to wait and see. Obviously it’s very hot today. I think Sunday is supposed to be a little bit cooler, but it being a little bit more difficult on tyres and a bit warmer probably will be more friendly for us than others, I hope.
Piastri also dismissed suggestions that the technical directive restricting wings comes into effect in Barcelona when asked by Sky Sports.
“I’m pretty confident we’ll be strong all year. I don’t think it’ll change too much. I’ve not spoken to the team about it massively, in all honesty, which probably tells you enough about that.
“So let’s see when we get to Spain, but we’ve still got a lot of races until then and I think we’ll be a strong team all year round.
