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Oscar Piastri

Piastri draws major conclusion after F1 'rescue acts'

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri speaks exclusively to RacingNews365!

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Interview
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Oscar Piastri has described how his "negative" qualifying results in 2024 left him often needing McLaren "rescue" acts in races in an exclusive interview.

Piastri banked his first two grand prix wins in 2024 in Hungary and Azerbaijan, collecting a further six podiums and a sprint win in Qatar as he finished fourth in the drivers' championship.

However, whilst he was strong in races, Piastri's qualifying form was a cause for concern, being out-qualified by team-mate Lando Norris 21-3 across the season and did not take a maiden pole position for a grand prix.

Reflecting on his second season in F1, Piastri believes he made genuine strides forward in races, but has spied his qualifying pace as a key area that requires improvement.

"The positives have been improvements from 2023, especially in terms of managing tyres and just general race pace, but like I've said, there's been the odd race here and there where it's still not been as good as I would have liked," Piastri exclusively told RacingNews365.

"So that's why it's an improvement, not a fix, but I think for 90% of the races, I've been very happy with the job I've done, I've been very happy with the racecraft I've shown.

"But I guess the negative is qualifying. Sometimes it's only been one or two positions back from where I feel like I should have been, but sometimes it was further back. 

"And even when it's qualifying second instead of first, it makes your life more difficult, so I feel like there's been a lot of races where I have been able to rescue qualifying, but there's been more than a few where I haven't been able to as well

"So hopefully I don't have to use what I think is one of my strengths so much next season, and I can qualify consistently better, and that's probably the biggest takeaway for next season.

"I think now it's a case of tidying everything up and putting it all together consistently, whereas I think in my rookie season, there were definitely still some gaps where even if I did put everything together, it sometimes wasn't enough."

Article continues below.

Exclusive Piastri interview

Reflecting on the season overall, Piastri felt the biggest thing for McLaren was that on the weekends it did not have the fastest car, it was still second-best. 

"As a team, it was a really strong season, but toward the end of the year, our competition got stronger again," he added.

"Red Bull found their feet a bit, Ferrari fixed the issues they were having in the middle of the year, and Mercedes really came back to the front in the last few weekends.

"Yes, we've had our weekends where we've clearly been the strongest, but on the weekends that we haven't, we've always been the car knocking at the heels of our competition. It has always seemed to be someone different, so that is the biggest thing. 

"For myself, Bahrain was a good step forward from last year in terms of pace, we got a few things wrong on the strategy, but I was happy with that. 

"Saudi was a good race, Melbourne was a little bit off but the result was still good but Japan was a bit of a struggle, and I think Miami was next.

"Personally, I felt like it was quite a good start, especially on circuits that were tough for me in 2023, from that side of things, I was quite happy."

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