Oscar Piastri admits McLaren are “not where we want to be” but does not regret joining the team
Oscar Piastri's debut with McLaren ended with an early retirement. The pace wasn't encouraging either, but the Australian does not regret joining the team.
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Oscar Piastri
Oscar Piastri’s career at McLaren certainly hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts. First, the car didn’t look very good. Second, he exited in Q1, and Lando Norris barely got out of that himself. Then during the race, the Australian retired very early with an electrical issue. It’s safe to say that Bahrain, and his Formula 1 debut, could have gone better for him.
Last season, he had rejected his promotion to Alpine’s main team. This was because, earlier, Alpine’s plan for him had been to send him to Williams on loan. He wanted something better, and also had a “breakdown in trust” with the team. So, he negotiated with McLaren to replace his compatriot, Daniel Ricciardo. That worked out for him, but right now, it looks as if he may have made a mistake. At least on sporting grounds.
But despite that, he does not regret making the move to McLaren (at least, not yet). For him, the decision to join McLaren had a lot to do with the belief they showed in him. As per Motorsport.com, the 2021 Formula 2 champion said: “For me, it was never really a decision of the two teams. It never really came down to that. For me, it was clear that I wanted to join McLaren with the amount of passion that they showed to having me in the team, which was a massive, massive factor in that.”
Oscar Piastri’s very focused on helping McLaren “move forward”
Of course, right now, McLaren have a hard job on their hands. They hope to be title contenders in 2025. Considering their situation right now, that begins to look unlikely, but not impossible. Right now, Oscar Piastri’s focus is on uplifting the team again. He said: “So, I don’t really view it in that same light. But obviously I’m very focused on where I am now and trying to help the team move forward and get back to where we want to be.”
When asked if he was disappointed that McLaren are now less competitive than back when he had signed for them, he replied: “We’re obviously not where we want to be at the moment. We’ve been very open about that. We’ve got a good development plan in place to try and get ourselves back to where we should be, which is chasing the top three or four teams. To get on the same level as those top three or four teams is difficult. We’ll see what these new developments that we’ve got in Baku bring for us. But obviously, it’s going to be a step in what’s a multi-step plan throughout the year.”
McLaren will definitely look to make a step forward this weekend in Jeddah. It’s also expected that they will bring a “heavily upgraded” B-spec car for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. That is definitely something to look forward to for McLaren fans. And for the team themselves, of course. It’ll be interesting to see where they end up after those upgrades.
In case you missed it:
- Alpine CEO “wouldn’t say no” to an Oscar Piastri reunion despite previous accusations of chopping off “the hand that fed him”
- F1 Bahrain GP: McLaren think Oscar Piastri has “done well so far” despite Q1 exit
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)