The Spanish Grand Prix was a race to forget for McLaren star Oscar Piastri but CEO Zak Brown still found a positive to focus on for the young Australian.
While Lando Norris was challenging Max Verstappen for victory, Oscar Piastri was hoping to maximise his potential points tally after a disappointing end to qualifying on Saturday.
Zak Brown took to social media after the race to praise both of his drivers.
McLaren had an opportunity to close the gap to Ferrari and Red Bull at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Sergio Perez’s struggles continued as he could only climb to 8 after another difficult qualifying session and drawn-out battle with Nico Hulkenberg and both Alpine cars.
Despite bringing a major upgrade package, Ferrari were arguably the fourth-quickest team and only finished 5 and 6 because Piastri and Perez had weekends to forget.
However, Brown wanted to highlight the ‘epic’ overtakes that Piastri managed to pull off throughout the race.
It helped him score six more points but the gap to his teammate is quickly increasing in the Drivers’ Championship.
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Zak Brown praises absolutely ‘epic’ Oscar Piastri overtakes after the Spanish Grand Prix
After the race speaking to the Formula 1 website, Piastri admitted that he ‘didn’t quite have the pace this weekend’ after a frustrating few days in Barcelona.
Piastri struggled to extract all of the pace out of his McLaren during practice and Norris proved in qualifying that they had the quickest car this weekend.
However, the Australian couldn’t live up to his normal high standards in qualifying, making two mistakes that saw him ultimately start the race from the fifth row.
Given the convergence of the cars on the grid, it meant Piastri was always unlikely to be able to carve his way through the pack to join his teammate at the front of the race.
And while he managed to find a way past both Alpine cars, he wasn’t in a position to bear either Ferrari driver despite their clash on track.
Brown will still be very pleased with how his team is performing and was delighted with Piastri’s overtaking at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Piastri has extremely high standards despite being vastly less experienced than the drivers around him on the grid and he’ll be wondering what could have been in Barcelona.
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Zak Brown sees the positives in Oscar Piastri’s performance
Posting on X directly after the race, Brown said: “P2 for Lando [Norris] at the #SpanishGP! We couldn’t quite close the gap to Max [Verstappen] at the end, but Lando drove a brilliant race. Oscar [Piastri] finishes P7 with some epic overtakes. Good points on the board. Austria next!”
Piastri admitted there was one issue with the car that he wasn’t too happy with at the end of the race.
Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer spotted an interesting comparison between Piastri and Norris, with the Brit going from strength to strength right now and firmly in the top tier of drivers on the grid.
Piastri’s stock is still incredibly high with Red Bull chief Helmut Marko believing that he and Norris are the best driver pairing on the grid.
At the right track, Piastri is a genuine contender to challenge the likes of Norris and Verstappen for race wins, but he’s still building up the required level of experience to challenge regularly at the very front of the grid.
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