The Australian driver spoke after finishing eighth in the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix, while his teammate Lando Norris finished sixth, with Lewis Hamilton coming between the two McLaren drivers in seventh.
This happened after Norris and Piastri qualified seventh and eighth for the race, revealing the initial hierarchy of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Although McLaren had a tough start to their 2023 season and had to wait until mid-season for improvements after an impressive upgrade package, their start in 2024 has been better, although not exceptional.
Based on what we have seen, McLaren is now in a battle with Mercedes for third place, behind Red Bull in the lead and Ferrari in pursuit.
Piastri spoke to the press in Bahrain after Saturday’s race, commenting on his performance: “Compared to last year, it’s not a bad start to the year. The pace was more or less what I expected. We were very close to Mercedes, Ferrari seems to be a bit ahead, and Red Bull is clearly ahead. We’ll see what the next circuits have in store for us. Some faster tracks and different asphalt. I hope they suit us better. Personally, I think it was a decent race. So, yeah, I’m pretty satisfied.”
During qualifying, the top five teams (Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Aston Martin) were separated by less than a second in Q3. However, Red Bull increased their advantage during the race, with Max Verstappen finishing over 20 seconds ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez in second, and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz over 2.5 seconds behind in third.
The highest placed McLaren driver, Norris, finished almost 50 seconds behind Verstappen. However, Piastri believes that the gap to Red Bull was expected. He stated: “I think Red Bull’s pace was more realistic than what we expected. They seem to have a similar pace to last year, with a similar difference. It’s not a big surprise, to be honest. In last year’s races, they were always faster than in qualifying. But maybe they are not as far ahead as we initially feared at the start of testing, but they are still quite ahead.”
Norris, in McLaren’s post-race press conference, added: “It was a challenging race, but I think we still had a good pace and it was definitely an improvement from last year, so I think we can be happy as a team. The wind affected us a bit today. It changed a lot compared to the last few days, and it felt worse in some corners. But we made progress, and it was the best we could expect today. A good start to the year.”
McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, expressed satisfaction with the start of the season, stating: “It’s great to start the season with a strong performance here in Bahrain. We were reliable and fast enough to compete with Mercedes today, which allowed us to score valuable points on a track that doesn’t necessarily suit our car’s characteristics. Oscar and Lando drove very well and consistently tonight. They didn’t make mistakes in challenging conditions, especially with the hard tires, and they gave a good start to our team in 2024.”
© 2024
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