Oscar Piastri says he fought arduous for fifth place within the Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix and restricted the harm within the drivers’ championship, however is having to be taught to drive his McLaren in another way.
Lando Norris dominated in Mexico, successful by over 30 seconds from Charles Leclerc having began from pole place. Piastri, against this, was over half a second off his teammate in qualifying however improved from seventh on the grid to complete fifth, and says the extra vital consequence will probably be if he has addressed some areas that helped extract extra from the automobile.
“There was a whole lot of struggle,” Piastri informed Sky Sports activities. “The entire race I used to be proper behind somebody and combating soiled air, in order that was fairly troublesome.
“For me, the largest factor is making an attempt to be taught the issues I wish to be taught. [In qualifying] it grew to become apparent after the session that there have been a couple of issues I needed to change fairly majorly in the way in which I used to be driving. If I’ve made some progress with that I will probably be joyful, however clearly, when your teammate wins the race, ending fifth is nothing that extravagant.”
Given an absence of upgrades from McLaren within the latter a part of the season, Piastri admits it’s been difficult to know why he wants to maneuver away from a driving type that had labored so nicely for thus lengthy this yr.
“I feel I’ve needed to drive very in another way within the final couple of weeks. That is been a bit of bit unusual to get my head round,” he mentioned. “I’ve been driving precisely the identical all yr – however the final couple of weekends the automobile, the tires or one thing has required fairly a unique means of driving. I’ve simply probably not gone to that. I attempted a couple of issues altering it up and as soon as we analyze whether or not that is been efficient or not hopefully we’ll see some progress.
“The automobile has not modified for some time now, so it’s nothing to do with the automobile. Given how the tempo has differentiated final couple of races, clearly Lando has discovered it simpler to dial into that and I have never.
“I feel it is very important keep in mind for the opposite 19 races the way in which I have been driving has been working fairly nicely… It’s about including instruments to the toolbox relatively than re-inventing myself.”
