Oscar Piastri shares ‘pretty clear weaknesses’ McLaren still have heading into 2024

Follow us on Google Discover

Oscar Piastri may have had a phenomenal rookie Formula 1 season, but he still believes that McLaren have some weaknesses to tackle before the start of the 2024 campaign.

McLaren finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship last year with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris leading an incredible comeback in the second half of the season.

Speaking to Autosport, Piastri has explained how the team’s preparation have gone over the winter.

It’s safe to say that the young Australian would have hoped for an easier introduction to Formula 1 12 months ago.

He was dealing with a car that was struggling to compete with some of the back markers on the grid and was very unreliable compared to today’s standards.

However, an upgrade package introduced halfway through the year transformed McLaren’s fortunes and allowed Piastri to display his true potential.

The Australian was very quick in qualifying but his race pace was at the same level as his teammate’s, while Jenson Button believes he needs to work on his consistency.

Piastri has explained that there are still some weaknesses with the McLaren despite the improvements made over recent months.

They may not exist for long though, with an upgrade package already planned for the beginning of the season.

Piastri shares that McLaren still have weaknesses

Talking about the preparation for next season, Piastri said: “The biggest thing is to continue the momentum. If you stand still, you’re going backwards.

“Of course, we don’t know what the other teams have around us.

“We’re happier than we were at this point 12 months ago with how things are looking. But until you’re on track with everyone else, you never quite know what it’s going to be like…

“The thing for us is, we still have pretty clear weaknesses [low-speed handling] compared to our competitors. It’s just that we also have good strengths as well.

“How those are going to balance up against each other is always difficult even for us to know. Every team has some sort of fluctuation at every circuit apart from Red Bull [at] Singapore.”

Red Bull and Mercedes might be glad to hear that Piastri thinks McLaren still have some weaknesses to sort out.

It would be hard to believe that Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez won’t be even quicker this year.

It’s up to the chasing pack to bridge the gap and they’ll all be competing amongst themselves to be the best of the rest.

McLaren will have a good idea of what direction they need to go in to get even quicker judging by the exceptional work they did behind the scenes last year.