Piastri: 'Happy with P8 at the time, pretty p****d off now!'

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri is having a fine debut season so far. The Australian started the season unconvincingly, partly due to the McLaren not having the pace in the first few races of the year. Consequently, when major updates were bolted onto the MCL60 in Austria, better results came. Piastri acknowledges that this now leads to very different expectations.

Piastri acknowledges higher expectations

In recent races, Oscar Piastri managed to attract positive attention on several occasions. Especially in the Sprint Shootout and the sprint race, many Formula 1 experts praised the rookie. Piastri himself also noticed that the much-improved McLaren and his own highlights now automatically lead to higher expectations. In a press moment during the race weekend at Zandvoort, Piastri spoke about this to the media present, including GPblog.

At Zandvoort, Piastri qualified in eighth place. In the races before the summer break, the driver had better qualifications. He comments: "I think our expectations have changed massively. I was thinking before I qualified for this position in Saudi and I was feeling pretty happy with myself. Now I've qualified eighth again and I'm pretty p****d  off. It's funny how quickly it changes."

'Proving every weekend that we can beat other teams'

McLaren managed to save a lot of time with some major updates to the car. As of Silverstone, the team is in full competition for podium places. Piastri knows that expectations for the team are therefore high: "The expectations are high for us now. I think Max and Red Bull are still a step ahead of everybody but I think we're proving each weekend now that we can beat that next team waiting. We still have to be on top of our game every time we go out there but I think we can definitely set our sights high and continue to push forward for the rest of the year."