With the first day of practice sessions in Mexico City done and dusted, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri walked away from the circuit with optimism, despite a ‘messy’ qualifying simulation. Sitting at over 2,200 meters above sea level, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit is surrounded by thin air that leaves teams running with very little downforce and poor cooling.
Facing this unique challenge, Piastri was pleasantly surprised at the way things ultimately panned out. While he agreed that the challenge was tough to overcome, the Australian admitted that the overall run was ‘a little better’ than he expected.
Speaking to the F1 media following a whole day of practice runs, the No. 81 driver further admitted: “My soft [tire] lap in FP2 was pretty messy, but I felt like the kind of overall pace seems to be there.”
With low grip being the norm pretty much on every track this season, adapting to it, particularly for the Mexico City track, did not feel like a new challenge for him. Under the new regulations, low grip has become the norm in F1, and so it wasn’t a dramatic new change for him.
However, Piastri feels that cooling the engine to an optimum temperature would prove difficult for all the teams. And away from it all, the Aussie driver sees Ferrari as the team to beat in Mexico.
Oscar Piastri Tips the Balance in Favor of Ferrari but Not by Much
While Piastri was happy to be driving the challenging MCL40 around the Mexico City track, his machine was still far from the pace that Ferrari had to offer. With Charles Leclerc topping both Friday sessions once again, the Australian driver had no issue admitting that the team in the scarlet red “looked very strong.”
The Aussie driver knows that if he can clean up on his mistakes from Friday, he can be further up the grid in Saturday’s qualifying. However, he is confident that trying to beat Ferrari might well be the biggest challenge of the weekend.
Much like Piastri, Mercedes’ George Russell also feels that Ferrari will have an advantage in Mexico, given the smaller size of their turbo unit. With the removal of the MGU-H, each team has made changes to their turbo component, and Ferrari carries a smaller turbo when compared to some of the other front runners.
However, Piastri hasn’t completely surrendered to the superiority of Ferrari in Mexico. While the Maranello-based team looked pretty quick, it won’t help them in every condition. Per the 25-year-old, the Italian outfit looked “a bit slow on the straights,” which could be a problem for them.
Therefore, the McLaren driver feels that the deficit might not be as big as he first thought. But for now, Piastri and McLaren’s focus remains on beating Red Bull in the constructors’ battle.
Oscar Piastri Hoping To Stay Consistent in the Battle Against Red Bull
Heading into the 19th race of the season, both Red Bull and McLaren have the same tally of points, but the team from Milton-Keynes is ahead because of more second-place finishes.
At the moment, Piastri is far from confident that his team has the car required to outperform Red Bull. However, the Aussie remains hopeful of continuing to improve the MCL40 so that they can keep the fight for P3 alive.
With reliability being a concern across the grid this year, the situation could still change in many ways and hand the papaya orange team the edge they need.
With several small updates in the pipeline for the remainder of the season, the No. 81 driver is further hopeful of getting a late boost, particularly after finding ‘some answers’ to their problems in Austin.
Despite the optimism and hope, Piastri couldn’t do much apart from sounding the alarm for his team, as he feels finishing ahead of Red Bull will be a huge challenge for them.
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