McLaren concedes it didn’t quite have the pace its Australian Grand Prix results reflect, with Australia’s Oscar Piastri pleasantly surprised to come home eighth at Albert Park.
Both Piastri and Lando Norris avoided the chaotic second restart on the second-last lap on Sunday, with the Aussie moving up three spots and Norris ending up sixth for a solid haul of points.
It moves McLaren from last in the constructors championship all the way up into fifth, after the team went scoreless in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to open the season, showing how tight the midfield is in 2023.
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Piastri joined compatriots Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo in scoring points on their debut at Albert Park, describing the day as “chaos”.
“Crazy race and the first race I’ve been involved in with three red flags,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1.
“Crazy race, happened to be in the points at the end of it. Pace in clean air was solid, got stuck behind Yuki for a while but happy to get my first F1 points.”
The Melburnian was running a distant 11th when the second red flag flew thanks to a crash from Kevin Magnussen behind him.
While he traded places with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda throughout the race he was well behind Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, running 10th.
“Esteban pulled a pretty big gap on me, it took me a while to get past Yuki, but I think at one point of the race we were somewhat similar in pace but I think at the moment, they’re a bit of a step ahead of us,” Piastri conceded.
“Where we are at the moment as a team, getting two cars well and truly into the points is a very good result for the whole team.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown agreed.
“We needed that,” he said.
“Were we sixth quickest and eighth quickest? No, but we’ll take the points and come back fighting in Baku.”
The papaya outfit is planning to bring upgrades to its troubled machine for the Azerbajian Grand Prix at the end of April, before bigger upgrades after the mid-season break.
