McLaren’s Oscar Piastri thinks the Imola circuit needs to go through improvements to enhance better racing following what he described as a “boring” Formula 1 race.
The Australian qualified on the front row for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix but was dropped to fifth as he received a three-place drop for impeding Kevin Magnussen.
Despite being able to sweep past Sainz with a successful undercut and getting close to Charles Leclerc, Piastri could not pass the other Ferrari and came home fourth.
Having missed out on the podium positions, the McLaren driver has suggested that the track needed some changes to improve racing and encourage more overtaking.
Piastri criticised the FIA’s decision to reduce the DRS zone down the start-finish straight this term and believes reverting that for 2025 would improve passing chances.
“It was basically impossible to overtake today,” Piastri said. “I tried my best, had like 20 laps behind Carlos trying to get past, and just could never get close enough.
“They made DRS shorter this year… I hope they make it longer again because clearly… I don’t know what the rest of the race was like but it was pretty boring for me.
“It was just a shame about the penalty because I think that unfortunately limited what we could have done.
“Think we had a good strategy to get in front of one of the Ferraris. I tried my best to get the second one, but it’s just so tough to overtake that, you know, you spend a couple of laps trying, you overheat the tyres quickly and then it’s game over,” explained the Australian. “So, yeah, I think that was the most we had today.
Piastri’s team-mate Lando Norris had similar comments prior to the weekend, commenting that such venues need to find ways to facilitate more on-track action.
“We want these circuits because they’re more challenging for us as drivers, but generally the tracks that are like this are also ones which are a bit harder to overtake,” Norris said.
“I think history is always a part of every sport and you always want to kind of keep definitely parts of history within it for whatever reason it is, so we love it, but we also want to race more.”
The McLaren drivers weren’t the only ones suggesting changes; Sergio Perez went even further as he stated the track “is not made for Formula 1 in terms of racing”.
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