Couldn’t really do much more to defend: McLaren driver Oscar Piastri

MOGYOROD [Hungary]: In the Hungarian Grand Prix race on Sunday, McLaren driver Oscar Piastri finished in the fifth position, whilst he failed to defend his position against Sergio Perez who concluded the race in the third position. In a recent interview, Oscar Piastri said, 'He couldn't really do much more to defend."

Oscar Piastri wound up coming home a distant fifth at the end of an attritional race that saw the whole field need two stops thanks to high levels of tyre degradation. It was in the first pit stop period that Piastri lost out to his teammate with McLaren calling Lando Norris in first. With the undercut proving powerful, the Briton was able to gain enough time on his out-lap to draw level with Piastri as he exited the pit lane and pull out an easy move on the rookie, whose tyres were not up to temperature.

According to the Formula 1 website Oscar Piastri said, “I think it wasn’t ideal to come out behind Lando [Norris] but when you finish 30 seconds behind him, it didn’t make much difference,” Piastri said afterwards. “I think it was just a lot of tyre management, I couldn’t really do much more to defend. I mean I tried as hard as I could against Checo Perez and he was out of sight in about two laps."

He added, “So yeah, some things to review on tyre management but, yeah, overall still a good day for the team and I think Lando’s proven – not so much myself – but that when it’s hot like this we can still stay at the front.” Piastri said, “I think if we’d had the old car here we would have been probably a lap behind where we were now. Still a really positive weekend for the team, a good weekend for myself, just a lot to go through, digest and learn from."

McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown said, “There was some conversation on the radio, we thought that was the best strategy for the team, we were considering ‘do we do something later in the race’ but we were on what is the best strategy for the team. We wanted to cover Lewis Hamilton, Lewis’ mechanics came out and looked like he was making a stop."

He added, “We wanted to see how the pace settled in on the new tyres, it’s something we discussed on the pit wall you know, see where we are on Lap 5 from the end and make a decision… When that happened on the pit stop, we knew it was something we might need to address later on but it was too early in the race to make that decision.”

While concluding he said, “Obviously, a great day for the team again, everyone at track and back at the factory. We have made decent steps forward in the last few races. The conditions this weekend have been a good test for us. To still be up there is a big confidence boost and we can look to take that momentum to Spa next week."