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Oscar Piastri claims the McLaren upgrades in Baku have delivered and given him more confidence in his car. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda after the Azerbaijan GP, the Australian driver explained the progress made over the weekend and his expectations in the upcoming races.
Asked by Sportskeeda if he felt more confident about his car after the Azerbaijan GP, the Australian replied:
“I think so, with the upgrades we’ve got now, It’s definitely an improvement. I think the Tarmac here helped us a little bit well and obviously other teams are bringing upgrades as well."
"So we’ve gotta out-deliver them to try and make some more gain. Yeah it’s definitely helped this weekend and it’s hound help in the next few races as well. But keep pushing on that front.”
Asked about the improvement of the balance with the car after the upgrades, Oscar Piastri said:
“It was more or less as expected, it was pretty same with this upgrade this weekend. Balance wise it was very similar, just quicker, which is kind of what we expected.”
At the Azerbaijan GP weekend, Oscar Piastri managed miss the points by one place as he finished 11th. His teammate Lando Norris managed finishing ninth scoring two points for the team.
The McLaren rookie believes that the upgrades introduced on the MCL60 have worked and given him more confidence in his tools. He claimed the balance had improved as expected but the car was definitely quicker than it was in the previous races.
Heading to the Miami weekend, the Australian feels McLaren need to out-develop their and outperform their rivals as the season progresses.
Oscar Piastri expects McLaren rivals to be stronger in the next few races
Oscar Piastri believes their current upgrade introduced on the MCL60 on Baku are not enough to judge their performance against their rivals. The Australian believes they will still have to make more gains in terms of performance to challenge the front runners. He feels they rivals Alpine too did not have any upgrades on their car in Azerbaijan and he expected them to stronger in the upcoming races.
Asked about their performance progress compared to their rivals, the Australian said:
“Yeah I think definitely. Yeah I think to challenge the top four teams, we stil need a few steps. With the upgrade we brought this weekend, obviously Alpine did not have an upgrade this weekend. I’m sure they’ll be stronger at other tracks but I think we definitely be encouraged by this weekend, I don’t think we can get ahead of ourselves."
"Im sure there will be some difficult weekends for us still. But I think it is on the right track to be scoring points, whilst we play catch up for a little bit. Encouraging for the future.”
Although Daniel Ricciardo could not match Lando Norris in his tenure at McLaren, Oscar Piastri has been able to adjust into the team straight away. The former F2 champion has been able to match Norris in the first four races and has a lot of expectations riding on him.
The 22-year-old has scored for points so far in the championship, six less than his British team mate. However, McLaren are currently in fifth place in the championship standings and have struggled with balance issues with their car since the 2023 season commenced.
