Oscar Piastri bemoans ‘magicless’ reality of ‘very tough’ McLaren situation

Oscar Piastri believes McLaren cannot "magically generate performance" after struggling in Austrian Grand Prix qualifying.

Despite looking quick in Friday's qualifying simulations, McLaren could only take sixth and seventh on the grid, with Piastri falling just 0.009s short of out-qualifying Lando Norris.

The MCL40 is in a battle with Red Bull's RB22 for the third-quickest car, with Max Verstappen fifth and Isack Hadjar in eighth. 

Norris was four-tenths slower than pole-sitter George Russell, with Piastri feeling that the closeness between the two McLaren drivers showed that a better performance was not possible to extract.

"I feel like we've done a good job of extracting everything we can out of the car, and it is not the first time we've got to Q3, and we need that last half-a-tenth or tenth," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365. 

"Lando and I have been within half-a-tenth of each other nearly every lap we've done this weekend, so when you've got two drivers that are so close all the time, it is probably a sign that extracting big chunks out of the car is very tough. 

"That is just where we are, but it is also not a huge surprise. For us to be as competitive as we were on Friday and in FP3, we expected Ferrari, especially, to be in the mix.

"Russell has had a very up-and-down weekend. Max was a surprise as well, but they've got a different, new car as well, so it is not a surprise, and we know where we are lacking overall. 

"The gaps are very close, and yeah, this or this could have been better, but I think there are 22 guys around here saying that. 

"I feel like we've done a better job compared to Barcelona of preparing things and extracting more performance, but we can't magically generate performance out of thin air."