Oscar Piastri airs 'real life' Madring doubt with 'writing off cars' warning

Oscar Piastri believes the new Madring street circuit has the "potential to be fun" although has aired a warning after experiencing the venue on the simulator.

Piastri had yet to conduct a track walk by the time he spoke to the media, including RacingNews365, on Thursday afternoon at F1's newest venue, situated around the IFEMA district in the north-east of Spanish capital Madrid.

From his simulator experience, the McLaren driver recognises the track has "a bit of everything", and he can understand why a recent F3 test resulted in numerous incidents and 19 red flags.

"It looks like there are some very good corners, some very slow corners, and then also some medium speed stuff," said Piastri.

"I don't know how bumpy it's going to be but from some of the F3 photos I saw, there was a lot of kerb usage, to put it mildly. So I think that's going to be interesting to see if our cars can take the same. Hopefully, we don't cause quite as many red flags!

"On the sim, once you get into the rhythm of things, it was fun to drive. Whether you can get into the same rhythm in real life, I'm not sure, because everybody will be writing off a few cars if they try to do everything like I did in the sim.

"It's the same for everybody, but it looks like it's got potential to be fun."

McLaren in the mix?

Following a major upgrade from McLaren ahead of the Hungarian GP, Lando Norris went on to win that race, and the subsequent event after the summer break in the Netherlands.

During Sunday's Italian Grand Prix, however, McLaren was found wanting for pace, particularly in comparison to Mercedes and Max Verstappen in his Red Bull.

Ahead of the Spanish GP, Piastri feels his team could again be competitive given the Madring's mix of corners.

"At Monza, the biggest thing was straight-line speed," said Piastri. "We know we're slower in a straight line, which is a combination of a few things - gear ratios being one, probably more drag being another.

"Low-speed performance I think was okay in Monza. Our medium- and high-speed performance is probably where we're strongest, but it's difficult to know where we sit here.

"Rather than just simply, we're good in high speed or whatever, we've got a few car traits that are good in some circumstances, not so good in others, so we'll see how a street circuit puts that to the test.

"I think Monza was really down to straight-line speed being the main issue. Here we should expect to be a bit more competitive.

"Again, we don't know exactly where we're going to sit, but if I was to hazard a guess, I'm hoping that we're going to be more competitive here than we were in Monza.

"That's not to say we were bad in Monza, but if we're a bit stronger here, we could certainly be fighting for the podium and hopefully for the win."