Oscar Piastri is preparing for his third year in Formula 1 in 2025 and McLaren are clear on one area the Australian must improve, yet it is an area where they hindered him.
The papaya crew have seen great results from Piastri since giving the 23-year-old a chance to race in Formula 1 after McLaren coaxed the Melbourne native away from Alpine. Over his first 46 Grand Prix starts, Piastri has taken two race wins, 10 podiums and three fastest laps.
Piastri also improved his racecraft and ability to nurse the delicate Pirelli tyres last year after struggling to keep the rubber alive for long enough as a rookie. His improvements helped to see McLaren win their first Formula 1 constructors’ championship since 1998 last season.
McLaren’s 2024 Dutch Grand Prix upgrades hurt Oscar Piastri’s qualifying pace
But one area McLaren still want Piastri to improve further during the 2025 Formula 1 season is in qualifying. Yet Auto Racer reports that the upgrades McLaren took to Zandvoort for the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix cost Piastri heavily and even saw Lando Norris start to dominate him.
McLaren unveiled a revised front suspension set-up and updated the edge of their floor plus the rear section of the MCL38 at Zandvoort having utilised the summer break preceding the Dutch GP to improve their qualifying pace. Norris took pole position at Zandvoort by 0.356s.
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Piastri qualified P3 for the 2024 Dutch GP, behind home favourite Max Verstappen. But their upgrades that McLaren debuted took the aerodynamic balance of their MCL38 away from a position Piastri preferred and increased when McLaren ran their high-downforce rear wing.
Norris enjoyed a two-tenths of a second lead over Piastri on average in qualifying after the Dutch GP. Yet that margin grew to around six-tenths between the Singapore, United States, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Las Vegas and Qatar Grands Prix as Piastri qualified P7.8 on average.
McLaren have told Oscar Piastri to improve his qualifying results
His race engineer Tom Stallard admits that McLaren want Piastri to improve his qualifying as he was on average one or two-tenths of a second a lap slower than Norris in 2024. Whilst it was often enough for them to qualify on the same row, the Australian is still to score a pole.
Piastri achieved his best qualifying result of P2 on the grid six times last year but Norris took pole position for eight Grand Prix. Yet those grid slots were still enough to see Piastri win his first Grand Prix in Hungary after getting a superior launch and grabbing the inside for Turn 1.
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McLaren will also feel they are right to demand Piastri improves his qualifying results as the Woking outfit saw Norris score six of his pole positions in 2024 from the Dutch GP onwards. He took pole for the Italian, Singapore, United States, Sao Paulo and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix.
On the other hand, Piastri only started second on the grid after McLaren’s upgrades taken to Zandvoort three times coming at Monza, in Baku and at the Yas Marina Circuit. Like he did in Hungary, Piastri overtook Norris on the first lap of the Italian GP but could not hold on to win.
