Piastri assesses impact of key McLaren decision

Oscar Piastri has insisted that McLaren’s difficult São Paulo Grand Prix was not due to introducing a new rear wing. 

McLaren fitted Lando Norris and Piastri with a new medium downforce rear wing, which saw both drivers excel in the dry and in the wet over one-lap. 

Piastri claimed sprint pole, whilst Norris secured P1 for the grand prix itself. However, in the wet race, both drivers struggled to make progress.

Through the corners, the MCL38 was very competitive and gained significant time, before losing it all along the straights as Piastri finished eighth after receiving a 10-second time penalty for a collision with Liam Lawson.

“Top speed didn’t seem great, but I don’t think that was our biggest problem,” Piastri told select media including RacingNews365. 

“We were obviously gaining in the corners with the downforce we had, but clearly not enough. 

“I think we need to understand a bit better, because the first half of the race we looked really quick, and then in the second half, both cars seemed to struggle a lot more.”

With Piastri eighth and grand prix pole-sitting team-mate Lando Norris only sixth, it marked a poor return for the team after a one-two in the dry sprint race.

The new rear wing certainly worked when in clean air, but the lack of top speed it caused hindered both drivers when in traffic. 

“I’m not sure how limiting it was,” said Piastri. “You could argue in qualifying it helped. 

“With the extra downforce in the race, it should have helped in the majority of the lap. In the first half of the race, yes, maybe you could argue it was holding us back a bit because we were stuck behind cars. 

“But the second half, we weren’t stuck behind cars, we were just slow. So I think it doesn’t really matter which rear wing we had on in the second half, we weren’t really going to finish any better.”