Oscar Piastri believes McLaren can now challenge Mercedes after a competitive weekend at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.
McLaren brought a raft of upgrades to Miami for the MCL40, which appeared to pay dividends on Friday and Saturday, Sunday confirming further work being needed to catch Mercedes.
Teammate Lando Norris took pole position and victory in the Sprint Race, with Piastri finishing second. Qualifying and the race on Sunday would prove a very different story, however.
Q1 proved particularly troublesome, with the Australian struggling in the early stages and progressing to Q2 by just 0.009 seconds.
Securing seventh on the grid, he pushed during the race to secure third, battling George Russell and Charles Leclerc.
Asked after the race if McLaren can now challenge Mercedes, he said: “I think yes.
“We’ll obviously have to wait and see what Mercedes bring, because they didn’t bring much this weekend and were still – in qualifying and the main race – probably the same, if not a tiny bit quicker, over one lap.
“We’re certainly not quite back in the position we were last year, but we’re getting there. With more to come, it’s a good place to be.”
More upgrades coming for MCL40
Piastri praised the impact of the Miami upgrade package, which effectively turned the MCL40 into an almost brand new car, but urged caution on evaluating their impact.
“We kind of need to see where we stack up at a few different tracks”, he said.
“I think especially in the Sprint side of this weekend, to have a one-two in the Sprint on pure pace, that was a pretty big surprise for us. So, things are working well.”
“We expected the upgrades to be a good step forward and they have been, and hopefully they are again in Canada.
“But obviously Mercedes didn’t bring a lot this weekend and they also have an upgrade package for Canada, so we’ll have to wait and see how much that’s worth for them.”
McLaren’s performance in Miami underlines its strengths in developing a car, indicating that wind tunnel and simulation data all correlate correctly, a feat that is hard to achieve in modern-day F1.