– Oscar Piastri had imagined the Dutch Grand Prix quite differently. After a difficult race, the McLaren driver had to settle for sixth place – and clearly lost touch with teammate Lando Norris.
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The reigning world champion won the race, while Piastri was unable to keep up with either Norris or Ferrari and Mercedes for long stretches. Particularly striking: on paper, McLaren actually had the fastest car. Piastri himself therefore had no simple explanation for the drop in performance after the race.
“I think there were many different strategies, and I don’t think our strategy was really the problem of our race,” he says. McLaren had originally pursued an unusual plan. Piastri went onto hard tires at the restart and wanted to run as long as possible before another set of hards would enable the second stint to the finish.
But already during the race it became clear that this calculation did not work out. “The idea was to start on hard and then run to the end, so also use the other hard. But quite quickly it became clear that the hard was actually not particularly good.”
First the pit stop, then the pace
Surprisingly, Piastri was one of the first drivers to change tires despite being on hard tires. A slow tire change cost additional time. “The slow first stop was of course painful, and after that the pace was painful,” Piastri sums up.
However, the bigger difference to Norris was not just in the strategy. Because even after the race had stabilized, Piastri could not come close to reproducing his teammate’s speed. The data clearly shows this: Piastri was on average about 0.46 seconds per lap slower than Norris during the race.
That is a significant difference for two drivers in the same team – especially on a track where McLaren controlled the race with Norris. Piastri himself therefore recognizes a more fundamental problem. “This is not the first race this year where the pace just wasn’t there,” he says. “Some were good, some very strong, but by now there have been too many where we were really far off.”
The problem apparently lies at the rear
Particularly interesting is Piastri’s explanation that the difficulties cannot primarily be traced back to the setup. When asked about possible differences in setup and driving style, he replied: “Not really in the setup. In the driving style, there obviously has to be something.”
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Piastri had felt significantly more comfortable in qualifying at Zandvoort. He was competitive through Q1 and Q2, even though he could not fully maximize his Q3 lap. However, the picture changed completely in the race.
“In qualifying I felt significantly more comfortable this weekend,” explains Piastri. “And in the race, the story was not the same at all.” The Australian mainly describes the rear of the McLaren as difficult. “In the race, the rear of the car is very difficult to drive.”
Hard tires “simply gone” after five laps
The tire situation was particularly dramatic in the second hard stint. According to Piastri, the first set still felt acceptable. The second set, however, barely held performance. “The second set was good for about five laps, and then my front tires were completely gone.”
Piastri therefore mainly sees wear as the cause. “Not necessarily just one thing went wrong, but the stint on this tire was very, very difficult.” After Ferrari passed him, the situation worsened further. Piastri drove through the “marbles” beside the racing line and thus collected more rubber and dirt on his tires.
Piastri himself knows that the McLaren is currently in good shape. “Lando won the race. So the car is in good condition.” The characteristics of the track also seemed to suit McLaren. “It was fast in the last two weekends. I think these two tracks suit the car well.”
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This makes the situation particularly difficult for him to explain: It apparently is not a general McLaren problem, but that he himself could not unlock the car’s potential in the race. “For some reason, I couldn’t get the pace out of the car.”
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