McLaren enjoyed a solid afternoon at the British Grand Prix, with Lando Norris finishing third and Oscar Piastri fourth, giving the Woking-based team the most points of the field with 27.
However, with a few different strategic decisions the team could have left Silverstone with a double podium, even if they didn’t monopolise the front row.
Whether McLaren will learn the right lessons from its latest close call was one of the big talking points as the grid arrived in Hungary for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, with Piastri saying the team is currently “learning” how to compete at the front of the field with more experienced rivals.
“There are several,” Piastri said at Thursday’s FIA press conference when asked what lessons the team learned at Silverstone. “Obviously there are some lessons specific to that race, but I think there are some in general too. Right now we’re fighting at the top, but I think we’re fighting against teams that have been in this position for a very long time – more than 10 years in some cases.
“As a team, it’s been a while since we’ve been in such a position on a regular basis. Making mistakes is no excuse, but we are less experienced than our rivals. We’re learning a lot with each race. I think we had some races where we took advantage of opportunities well, maybe not talked about as much, but I think that’s part of racing,” Piastri added. “When you’re at the front, missing these opportunities can sometimes be the difference between winning a race or finishing second, which of course carries more weight than the difference between sixth and seventh place.”
Piastri was then asked how the team could avoid becoming “frustrated”, with the second-year driver explaining how McLaren can focus on what they can control, rather than other external factors.
“So, there’s a couple of ways. First of all, the fact that we have this opportunity, you know, we’ve had the opportunity over the last few months, but our memories aren’t that short. And, you know, it was only 12 months ago that we finished P3 and P4, which was an incredible result for us. So, I think we still have that memory. Of course, you can’t rely on that memory forever and we have to recognise that we’re in a very different position now than we were before. But the opportunities were always going to be very different too.
“Part of the situation was in our control and I think we did a good job of analysing it, but I think a big part of the situation was out of our control as a team,” Piastri added. “So I think a big part of it is just focusing on what we need to improve on and not getting hung up on things we can’t control.”
In that respect, it’s worth looking back at how far McLaren has come over the past year. This week marks the start of the second half of the F1 season and McLaren is currently F1 Constructors’ Championship Red Bull currently leads the constructors’ championship standings with 373 points, just seven behind second-placed Ferrari on 295 points.
A year ago, McLaren were languishing in fifth place midway through the season with just 87 points, but by the end of the season they had risen to fourth place, still well above where they were at this time last year.
Even if there is still more to learn.
