Loitering at the Bottom in Miami, Oscar Piastri Left Clueless on McLaren’s Long List of Issues: “Not sure it was…”

The current reliability of McLaren is as bad as it could get. At this point, it appears that the team is working against its drivers. The fans and their drivers are stuck in an endless loop of hoping for upgrades, seeing them, and realizing they are no better than the previous ones. The drivers continue to suffer race after race despite giving it their all. In Miami, Oscar Piastri became the victim yet again, as his performance was dampened by a brake-by-wire issue and other issues.

The rookie driver tried his best at the start and gained five positions at the start of the race. Having decided to go ahead with an aggressive tire strategy, fate had other plans for the Aussie. The state of his McLaren was so bad that, despite him finishing P19 in the race, his performance was termed “excellent” by McLaren boss Andrea Stella.

Oscar Piastri’s race was spoiled early on by the issue, and the issue just kept getting worse. As quoted by the Speedcafe, the 22-year-old said, “So [we] tried something different [and it] didn’t really work. It worked on the first lap, got a lot of positions off the start, and then about three or four laps after the pitstop I had a BBW failure, with some other failures as well. That was why the pace was so terrible. After that, I had a brake pedal that was about two metres long, it felt like, amongst other things.”

“Hit the brakes one lap and the brake pedal just went to the floor. We need to understand why. I’m not sure it was just a BBW; we had some other issues as well going on.”

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This just points to how bad the MCL60 must have been in the opening rounds of the season. Despite having used the big upgrades in Baku, McLaren can only blame its technical development failure for the lack of success this season.

Oscar Piastri is a future world champion

Oscar Piastri was the hottest driver on the market, having won both F2 and F3 in his rookie seasons. The driver’s services were contested by Alpine and McLaren in court, and the rest is history. So, with the technical ability shown so far in a car below par, the driver has already impressed McLaren CEO Zak Brown.

Zak believes that Piastri is a future world champion. Quoted by Speedcafe, the boss once said, “He’s very focused. He’s not really made any, certainly not any big mistakes – typical exploring the limits, so the odd lock of a wheel here and there. Early indications are we’ve got a future world champion on our hands; [we] just need to work to get a faster car now.”

WATCH THIS STORY: How Oscar Piastri Has Made a Scintillating Rise to the Pinnacle of Motorsport

McLaren now has “two future world champions” in a car unable to be dragged into the points. How long will it be able to hold onto its incredible talents? Can’t be said for sure, but definitely not for long.