Oscar Piastri: McLaren ‘learning’ how to fight

McLaren enjoyed a solid afternoon at the British Grand Prix, as a third-place finish from Lando Norris and a fourth-place finish from Oscar Piastri saw the Woking-based outfit bank 27 points, the most of any team in the field.

However, had a few strategic calls been handled differently, the team could have left Silverstone with a double-podium, if not a lockout of the front row.

Whether McLaren would learn the right lessons from recent close calls was one of the major storylines as the grid arrived in Hungary for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix. According to Piastri, the team is now “learning” how to fight with more experienced rivals at the front of the field.

“I mean, a few,” said Piastri during Thursday’s FIA Press Conference when asked what lessons the team learned in Silverstone. “Obviously, a few specific to that race in particular. I think a few in general. I think as we’re now fighting back at the front, we’re competing against teams that have been in this position for an incredibly long time. In some cases, over a decade.

“It’s been a while since, as a team, we’ve been regularly fighting in those positions. It’s not an excuse for us to be able to get it wrong, but we are inexperienced compared to some of our competitors. We’re learning a lot as we go along. I think we’ve had a few races where we’ve really taken advantage of our opportunities and maybe they haven’t been commented on as much, but I think that’s part of the game,” added Piastri. “When you’re right at the front, these missed opportunities can be the difference between winning a race or finishing second, which, of course, has a bit more weight than if you’re having the difference between a P6 and a P7.”

Piastri was then asked how the team would keep “frustration” from setting in. The second-year driver outlined how McLaren would focus on the things within their control and not other external factors.

“I mean, a few ways. I think the fact that we’re even having these opportunities in the first place is, you know, we’ve been having opportunities for the last couple of months now, let’s say, but our memory is not that short. And, you know, it was only 12 months ago that we were finishing P3 and P4 and that was an incredible result for us. So I think we still have that. Of course, we can’t live off that forever and we need to appreciate that we’re in a much different position now. But also the opportunities have always been very different.

“And some of the circumstances have been in our control and I think we’ve been very good at analysing that. I think a fair share of the circumstances have been out of our control as a team,” added Piastri. “So I think you know just focusing on what we need to improve for ourselves and not being caught up on the things that are out of our control, that’s a massive part of it.”

To that point, it is worth recalling just how far McLaren has come in the past calendar year. This week marks the starting point of the second half of the F1 season, and right now McLaren sits third in the F1 Constructors’ Championship with 295 points, just seven points behind second-place Ferrari. Red Bull currently leads the Constructors’ Championship standings with 373 points.

At the midway point of the season a year ago, McLaren was down in fifth place, with just 87 points in their account. While they would manage to climb into fourth before the season finished, they are still miles ahead of where they were at this time last year.

Even if they still have some more learning to do.