As his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris romped away to victory, Oscar Piasti was left ruing a “pretty painful” race at Zandvoort in the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix.
Norris and Piastri qualified first and third respectively, but both lost ground at the start of the race, with the Australian member of the McLaren duo getting stuck behind Mercedes George Russell.
Despite clearing Russell after the first round of pit stops and enjoying a healthy tyre delta to the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, Piastri could do nothing to impress upon the third-placed Monegasque driver once he caught him.
Stuck in dirty air for the majority of Sunday’s race, Piastri was hampered and it made for a less-than-enjoyable race for the Hungarian GP winner.
“[The race result] started with qualifying, just not being competitive enough when it mattered,” Piastri told media including Motorsport Week post-race.
“The start obviously didn’t help things, but it just kind of boxed us in a little bit.
“I think the pace in clean air was quite strong and clearly the car was quick today. I just spent about 60 of the 70 laps within a second of the car in front, so that made life pretty painful.”
Norris meanwhile, cleared early race leader Max Verstappen on Lap 18 and romped away to a 22s victory over the Dutchman with Piastri 27s behind his team-mate at the end of the 72-lap affair.
The upgraded MCL38 delivered pace in astonishing fashion in Norris’ hands and while Piastri took a crumb of comfort from McLaren’s impressive speed, he admitted he was second-best to his more experienced team-mate across the Dutch GP weekend.
“I think clearly the car is very quick, and I think even for myself in clean air, I felt pretty strong,” he said.
“Ultimately this weekend I don’t think I was quite at Lando’s level, so there’s definitely some things to work on there, but I think being stuck behind traffic made my afternoon and my weekend look a bit more painful than it was in terms of pace, so it’s only a good thing that the car is that quick.
“I just need to make sure that I’m joining in on the fun.”
Piastri wasn’t all doom and gloom however, and noted how “there were definitely moments of the weekend where I felt very strong and very comfortable.”
Among those moments was Friday practice, where Piastri said he felt “pretty strong, especially over one lap.
“Even qualifying was looking very strong, I just didn’t find enough on the last lap of qualifying, and that made life a bit painful.
“Accompanied by a bad start today, it really kind of set the tone for the afternoon.
“When your teammate wins by 20 seconds, clearly there’s things to work on and improve, so I’ll try and make sure that I’m back in the game next week.”
