Oscar Piastri is confident McLaren can fight towards the front of the field at the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend. McLaren’s form has taken a surprising turn at recent race events, with the MCL60 appearing to be the second-fastest car behind Red Bull since an upgrade was added first to Lando Norris at the Austrian Grand Prix. Piastri’s teammate has taken two podium results at the last three events, while the Australian is awaiting his first amid an impressive rookie season - though he did finish second in the Belgian Sprint. The Woking-based outfit began the current campaign on the back foot, conceding before the start of the year that it had missed development targets. But amid its upturn of form at recent rounds, Piastri is hopeful that McLaren can fight at the front once more at Zandvoort. “There are elements of this track that suit us like the high-speed corners, the lack of straights,” he told media including RacingNews365.com . “And there are some things that don't suit us, like slow corners. “And also just looking at the track, it's starting to get a bit old now, a few bumps here and there, which also, I wouldn't say really helps us but doesn't really help anybody, it’s bumpy. “I think it's we've been able to show in the last few races with three different layouts. OK Spa, we had some clear weaknesses, but our actual car pace overall still wasn't that bad. “Especially in sort of mixed conditions. It was still strong. So I think we can be reasonably confident that we can still fight the front. “It’s just going to be whether the stronger parts of the track are better than the weaker parts relative to others.”
Practice key for race weekend
Zandvoort is not a completely new track to Piastri given his junior formulae exploits but he has suggested: "It'll probably take all of Friday to be close to fully up to speed. “[Then] sleep on it, process it and then hopefully is by Saturday, it's okay. “But definitely around here, you get it wrong, you pay a big, big price, which in some ways is nice.” “Fingers crossed, there's not a talk about track limits and stuff like that should be pretty obvious if you've exceeded track limits because you'll probably be in a gravel trap somewhere. “It looks like a really cool track and especially in an F1 car I'm sure it'd be a lot of fun.”
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