Weeks after his first victory, Oscar Piastri regrets the “missed opportunities” in the first half of the season and emphasizes that “it could have gone even better.”
The young Australian is in fourth place in the overall standings, ahead of Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez, and should be pleased with himself, as recent events suggest that he has also unsettled his experienced teammate.
Despite the win against Hungary, Piastri believes there is still room for improvement.
“I think I’ve made good progress on the things I wanted to improve last year,” he says Speed Cafe. “I think I’ve achieved some of my goals from the end of last season and made clear progress in some of those areas… I would say in all areas.”
“Of course there is still room for improvement,” he adds, “but I think it was a good step forward.”
Unlike last year, the 2024 McLaren was competitive right from the start.
“I think the most important thing was mostly positive, both from a team perspective and a personal perspective,” he says, looking back on the first half of the season. “The team gave Lando and me a car that can win races.”
“The biggest advantage, of course, is that we have catapulted ourselves into the competition with an incredibly fast car,” he adds. “That’s really the most important thing.”
But despite finishing fourth in the overall standings, things could have gone even better due to a number of serious strategic errors and some of his own mistakes, as he is also the first to admit.
“It’s kind of like we missed a few opportunities because we couldn’t control some things,” he says. “Like Miami, the track limits in Austria, I mean, technically I had that under control but not really considering how they were lifted. And then there were a few that we could control, most recently Silverstone, a bit of Canada, to a certain extent Imola with the qualifying penalty…
“So I think overall it’s positive,” he adds. “But I feel like there’s potential to do even better, which is obviously a very exciting situation.”
