Amid McLaren’s magnificent rise this season, Oscar Piastri’s Sprint win was an important milestone. The young rookie driver surprised and at the same time impressed everyone as he took the chequered flag in Qatar ahead of the mighty Max Verstappen. Even though many might say Piastri got lucky one time, for Piastri it was not just luck, but ample confidence.
The Australian driver recently revealed that he was not worried about the pressure from Verstappen. Piastri told SpeedWeek, “Actually not. I was able to keep the distance roughly constant. From that point on I was pretty sure I could drive it home.”
The race started with Piastri in P1, while his teammate Lando Norris in P2, Verstappen, and George Russell in P3 and P4, respectively. Soon after the race start, the young Australian held off to his lead but the Mercedes driver soon hunted him down.
Suitcase going to weigh a little more on the way home pic.twitter.com/A6Id6uHNfg
— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) October 7, 2023
The 22-year-old looked brave despite this as he went on, “‘In between I was overtaken by Russell, I thought I was going to have a heart attack when he overtook me. Fortunately, I was able to overtake him later,” Admittedly, this was partly because Russell was with soft tires that started wearing off pretty quickly compared to Piastri’s mediums.
Along with this, the McLaren driver also spoke about how he learned to be more technical and smart during the race. He stated that his pace and tire management were good and was happy with his performances. Nevertheless, the #81 driver still wants to go for more in the future and does not want this Sprint win as his only accolade.
How did McLaren help Oscar Piastri to improve massively?
Oscar Piastri and McLaren had the worst start to their season in 2023. In the first two races, the Papayas claimed zero points and faced immense backlash from the fans over their lackluster performances. However, things began to change following the British Grand Prix.
The British GP marked the spree of impressive performances for McLaren with Norris taking P4. The very next race saw Norris take the first podium for the team with P2 in the Hungarian Grand Prix. All in all, this has been the rise of mega power in the name of McLaren.
Two trophies. One team. #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/zJlVLG1j8T
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) September 24, 2023
The performance of Zak Brown’s team was so supreme that at some point they left their competitors Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin behind. Even though they finished in P4 in the Constructors’ championship, they could have fared well if they had a better start to the season.
Both the drivers in the team performed exceptionally well with Norris taking P6 in the driver’s championship with 205 points and Piastri taking P9 with 97 points. This season being his first season, Piastri performed fairly well compared to Norris.
All in all, if Zak Brown’s team can manage to have a better car next year, the overall performance of the team can get better. Therefore, an intra-team tussle might just be in the cards between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
