Jun.16 (GMM) Oscar Piastri admits he has no explanation for his increasingly difficult run of form alongside McLaren teammate Lando Norris.
While Norris at least managed to take the fight to the dominant Mercedes cars in Barcelona, Piastri endured another anonymous weekend and was left baffled by the extent of the performance gap between the two sides of the garage.
“Do I understand why I’m behind Lando? No, not really,” the Australian admitted. “I tried a lot of different setups and encountered various issues.”
Piastri acknowledged that Norris extracted much more from the McLaren package throughout the Spanish GP weekend. “Lando was able to give Mercedes a run for their money in the race,” he said.
The Australian believes McLaren is increasingly being forced beyond its comfort zone in the search for performance. “We’re constantly missing a tenth or two of a second.
“Or, in my case, much more. When you’re trying to find the last bits of speed, the car starts to feel a bit uneasy.
“We have to push it into a range it doesn’t really like to work in. And that inevitably creates additional complications.”
The struggles have not gone unnoticed.
2016 world champion Nico Rosberg believes Piastri’s reputation in the paddock is beginning to suffer – having soared to the role of title favourite at some point just a year ago.
“Not going too well for him as of late,” Rosberg told Sky. “His market value has taken a bit of a plunge in the last weeks and months.
“With these new regulations, new cars, Oscar is not feeling too comfortable yet. But it’s a bit strange and he really needs to work on that now because he’s falling down.”
Another former champion, Jacques Villeneuve, sees the current trend as a continuation of a decline that began during the second half of last season.
“Halfway through the season he was the talk of the paddock,” Villeneuve said.
“Like it’s great they signed him because he showed it in Formula 3, Formula 2 – amazing. And then he collapsed, and his form went down, and he hasn’t recovered. It’s really odd.
“And nobody’s talking about him anymore,” the 1997 title winner added. “And that’s in the space of what? Like six months? Even less.”
Villeneuve said Formula 1 quickly forgets past achievements.
“You’re only as good as your last race,” the Canadian insisted. “That’s what’s tough with sports – unless you’re Lewis and you’ve won so many championships and so on. Then, ok, there’s something you can lean on.
“But otherwise, two, three bad races, and ok, move on.”
