“Doesn’t Feel Too Much Different”: Despite Setting Up McLaren’s Rampage at Silverstone, Oscar Piastri Puts a Dampener on Expectations

Toto Wolff once said, “The past has no relevance in Formula 1.” McLaren driver Oscar Piastri seems to agree with Wolff. While the Mercedes team principal was referring to Mercedes’ domination during the turbo-hybrid era, Piastri isn’t referring to a time that far back. He’s talking about the big step McLaren seems to have taken in the past two race weekends. Following the British GP—where Piastri came oh-so-close to achieving his first career podium—everyone in the Formula 1 community, including other drivers and teams, believes McLaren is back. But Piastri quickly dismissed any expectations.

McLaren introduced its second round of upgrades to both cars at Silverstone as part of its major overhaul after giving only Lando Norris the upgrades in Austria the week prior. Owing to the updates, McLaren went from fighting at the back of the midfield to competing at the front. And at the British GP, both McLarens were fighting Max Verstappen in a Red Bull in the race’s early stages. They did what no other team has managed to do this season, and Piastri appreciated the team for it. As quoted by speedcafe.com, he said, “The car’s clearly a good step forward.”

Even so, he believes the team and everyone else shouldn’t get carried away before witnessing their performances in other tracks. He explained, “We saw in Barcelona in similar conditions [during qualifying] with the old spec car that we could also challenge for the front. I don’t want to be negative, but I feel like there’s a little bit in that.” McLaren has had a good qualifying pace throughout the season, especially in cold temperatures. In Barcelona, Norris qualified third, and at Silverstone—in similar conditions—he qualified second, with Piastri in third.

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While talking about the car, he said, “The car doesn’t feel too much different. And I think we still have some weaknesses we want to address.” Either way, he seemed pleased with McLaren’s pace and how it’s more consistently been fighting at the front the past few weekends. Every car is bound to have weaknesses that teams work toward sorting out, even Red Bull. While Piastri is aware of the challenge ahead, so is Verstappen.

Verstappen reveals Red Bull upgrades following Oscar Piastri’s showing

After Oscar Piastri and McLaren’s outing in Silverstone that brought them closer to Red Bull, Max Verstappen revealed that the Milton-Keynes team would be getting upgrades to the Hungarian GP. Even though Red Bull knows catching up to them is nearly impossible this season, it doesn’t want to take any chances.

After the race, while discussing the McLaren duo’s performance and the team’s step forward, Verstappen said, “It’s very confusing for me because every race weekend, someone else is fast. I honestly don’t know what will happen in Hungary, who will be fast or the second fastest. Hungary is a completely different circuit, we will put some upgrades on the car, and hopefully, they will work well.” Red Bull taking precautions is another testament to Toto Wolff’s statement about the past holding no relevance. Red Bull knows it has a target on its back, and it’s striving to remain the target.

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How do you think McLaren will fare at the Hungarian GP?