Oscar Piastri has urged McLaren to understand its “unexpected” race-winning pace in Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix despite admitting it presents “encouraging signs”.
McLaren brought several developments last time to the United States, with the whole package on Lando Norris’ MCL38 exhibiting positive indications from the outset.
The Briton capitalised on a well-timed Safety Car in the race to negotiate his McLaren into first place, where he accelerated from Max Verstappen to claim his first win.
But having run second across the opening stages, Piastri’s outing unravelled as contact with Carlos Sainz saw him incur damage that dropped him outside the points.
However, the Australian, whose car was equipped with limited parts from McLaren’s latest upgrades, viewed promise from both his pace and his team-mate’s exploits.
“I think for both of us the car was really strong,” Piastri said.
“For Lando to win the race on pace and to pull away from Max after the Safety Car, I think that’s a very, very encouraging sign.
“So, very happy for him and for the whole team. I think we deserve it. Our trajectory in the last 12 months has been towards this moment.”
Asked whether Norris’ success provided optimism Piastri said: “Yeah, definitely encouraging from that side and even with the car that I had, I think we were very strong as well.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella and Norris had dampened expectations surrounding the potential that would be exploited from McLaren’s developments in Miami.
Piastri conceded that the Woking-based squad transpired to be more competitive than anticipated, hinting there were positive and negative aspects to such surprises.
“In these conditions on this track, the pace we had was unexpected,” he conceded. “We don’t fully understand why.
“We’re a bit up and down on different days. But the fact that we can win a race on pace is a very very encouraging sign for the rest of the year.
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