McLaren’s Oscar Piastri admitted that an eighth-place finish in last weekend’s Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix was “not a bad way to start the year, compared to last year.”
12 months ago things were a very different story for Piastri and McLaren as the initial McLaren MCL60 proved to be both uncompetitive and unreliable in race trim.
Piastri was resigned to the pit garage 13 laps into his F1 debut, while Lando Norris visited the pits six times with a continual neumatic issue and finished two laps down in 17th.
However, McLaren capitalised on its momentum to close out last term to end with eighth for Piastri and sixth for Norris in 2024, representing a stark improvement.
“We will definitely take it,” said Piastri post-race.
“The pace was more or less how I thought it would pan out. We’re very close with Mercedes, Ferrari seem a bit of a step ahead, Red Bull a clear step ahead.
“Honestly, not a bad way to start the year.”
Bahrain presents a unique challenge with its abrasive surface and Piastri’s team-mate Norris has previously labelled it as somewhat of a bogey track for McLaren.
Looking ahead, the high-speed Jeddah layout in Saudi Arabia should serve the MCL38 better – given it is an evolution of the high-speed-corner specialist that was the updated MCL60.
“We’ll see what the next few circuits have in store for us,” Piastri added.
“Some quicker layouts and very different tarmac. So we’ll see if that suits us better or worse. Hopefully better.
“I feel like on a personal note, it was a decent race. So yeah, I’m pretty pleased.”
McLaren vaulted itself into the best-of-the-rest conversation in the latter half of last season with a raft of upgrades that saw it ascend into a genuine podium contender.
After Max Verstappen’s rampant victory in Bahrain on Saturday it very much looks like the conversation will again lead to who will pick up the pieces in the Dutchman’s wake.
Despite proceedings being close in qualifying, with half a second covering polesitter Verstappen back to Piastri on the end of the fourth row, in race conditions that gap transformed.
Norris in sixth was 48 seconds behind the lead Red Bull, with Piastri a further eight seconds back on his team-mate as the two McLarens were split by Lewis Hamilton.
The Australian driver isn’t panicking though and remains realistic about the Woking-based squad’s expectations compared to the reigning Constructors’ Champions.
“It was a bit more realistic for what we expected to be honest,” he commented.
“They look in a pretty similar pace to last year, you know, similar kind of gap. So not a massive surprise and in the races last year, they were always quicker than they were in qualifying.
“Maybe still not quite as far ahead as we first feared at the start of testing, but still a long way ahead.”
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