Piastri: "Don't have many answers at the moment"

"I just didn't have the pace to really do anything," as Piastri looked back on the Spanish Grand Prix in conversation with GPblog and others. The Australian's start was not very good, as he immediately lost several places. "Which didn't help things but I don't think I really had the pace to stay in the points anyway. So yeah, we'll have a look at why we struggled so much today compared to yesterday."

The fact that Lando Norris started from third on the grid and Piastri from eighth was mainly due to the weather conditions, according to the latter. The track in Barcelona was initially wet and became drier and drier as the session went on. "I don't think we're in normal circumstances able to put the car that high up on the grid. So today was maybe a bit more back to reality. Probably a more difficult day than what we would have hoped, even considering that."

Relatively high tyre degradation at McLaren

Tyre degradation may not have been as high as expected at the Circuit de Catalunya, but even so, it was key towards a good result. McLaren did not quite have that right. " Yes, I think so," Piastri indicated the problem. "I don't have that many answers at the moment, but others seemed to just be able to push more when they wanted to and find an extra gear, and we were getting some flaps after that. So I think it's something to do with that, yeah."

For the first time, a different layout was driven at Barcelona this season. Does Piastri find it an improvement? "I never did an F1 race in the old one, so it's a bit difficult to say but from my point of view, it was still quite tricky, probably one of the more difficult to follow for the year. It seemed like as soon as you got within about two seconds of the car ahead you already start to struggle. I mean, Gasly was behind me for quite a long time, and once he managed to get clear air, it pulled away extremely quickly," the rookie said.