The McLaren team has prepared a number of technical innovations for the race weekend in Miami and Oscar Piastri hopes this will help take the next step forward.
Oscar Piastri: “Let’s hope that the new products will allow us to improve, because this is what you always expect when modernized components appear on a car. Of course, if sprints are included in the weekend program, it will be difficult to fully realize their potential during training, but they should be an important step forward.
Last year the team presented some new products at the Baku stage, and that race took place just before Miami, but then we performed extremely poorly here, and that was a real shock. So we still have to see to what extent the American circuit suits our car, but we do want to believe that the new products will perform exactly as we expect.
We’re trying to stay on the same trajectory as last year with the upgrades, but the closer we get to the limits of these cars, the harder it is to make progress, so we’ll see what awaits us this weekend.
But I think we are gradually getting closer to the leaders and at the end of last season we were very close to Red Bull Racing on some circuits. But of course the McLaren car is not yet as good as the RB20 in all respects. We still have a lot of work to do, and this weekend we’ll try out the following new products – they should help close the gap too.
It is enough to compare where we were twelve months ago and where we are now, and it becomes clear that the team is in excellent shape, so we hope that by the end of the season and next year we can compete with the leaders with more confidence.
Regarding the new sprint weekend format being tested in China, I found it a bit strange that there would be a short race on Saturday followed by qualifying, as it always seems like the race should end the day’s program.
But the fact that the park rules no longer apply after the sprint is positive for the drivers and engineers, although I’m not sure if the mechanics like that.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
