Oscar Piastri concedes to 'fundamental' flaw in latest McLaren setback

Oscar Piastri has conceded McLaren lacked the “fundamental” pace at Silverstone as it failed to challenge at the front on Friday.

Lewis Hamilton secured sprint pole after narrowly edging out Kimi Antonelli in sprint qualifying.

It proved to be a difficult day for McLaren, with Lando Norris and Piastri qualifying sixth and seventh, respectively.

The Woking-based squad finished around four tenths of a second off the pace, leaving it unable to challenge alongside the leading teams.

Piastri attributed McLaren’s struggles to a simple lack of outright pace compared to its rivals.

“P7 is more or less what we expected,” he said.

“We knew coming into Sprint Qualifying that we probably weren’t in the fight for the very front, and while we made some small improvements to the car after practice, it just wasn’t enough to close the gap to the leaders. 

“It’s a shame because I felt like we were on it and got everything we could out of the car, but we’ve just not had the fundamental pace.”

McLaren is stuck with its current set-up until the end of the sprint race, after which it will be able to make tweaks in the hope of securing a better result for qualifying.

“It was a tricky day, but we aren’t discouraged,” Piastri added. 

“We ended up close to that next group of cars, which gives us something to work with. 

“We’ll analyse everything overnight, see what we can optimise, and be ready to push hard and fight for a better result in qualifying tomorrow before the main race on Sunday.”