F1 News: Oscar Piastri Confident About A Strong Finish In Abu Dhabi GP

Oscar Piastri is confident about the car's performance after recovering positions from P18 to P10 in Las Vegas.

After a rather strong drive during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which helped Oscar Piastri recover from P18 on the grid to P10, the Australian driver is confident about achieving a positive end to the season in Formula 1's grand finale in Abu Dhabi.

The McLaren team woke up to several challenges during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, realizing that the street circuit isn't what one would call MCL60-friendly as Piastri and teammate Lando Norris were eliminated in Q1 on Friday night.

During the Grand Prix, Norris crashed out of the race in Lap 3 which, as per team principal Andrea Stella, was caused by a bump on the new street circuit. Fortunately, Piastri had a strong start to the race as he was soon found running in P4. 

However, he was forced to make a pit stop that dropped his position to tenth, even after setting the fastest lap of the race. When he was asked after the event if he had wished for a Safety Car to take advantage from a free stop and hold into fourth place, he said:

“Yep, definitely! Yeah, we were looking good for a long time, obviously it’s a shame that I knew I had to do an extra stop. Pace was very good, nice to get a bonus point for fastest lap as well.

“Not the easiest of days for a lot of people, I think, [it was a] pretty jumbled race. But I think with everything that happened it was more or less the best we could have done, so yeah, happy with the pace and just a shame that we started so far back and a couple of things didn’t quite go our way."

Considering the challenges McLaren encountered during the initial days of activities in Las Vegas, Piastri expressed satisfaction in making a strong comeback as he found the car's performance on Saturday pleasantly surprising. He added:

“I think we knew we had reasonable pace yesterday.

“I think today was arguably a little bit better pace than what we expected. But yeah, it was just a shame yesterday that we kind of got caught out in qualifying and [that] made life a little bit more difficult.

“Nice to know that the car pace is still good in the race, on a circuit like this that we knew wasn’t really going to suit us very well, and yeah, hopefully Abu Dhabi we can finish the year off strong.”

The season finale holds significant stakes as McLaren competes with Aston Martin for the fourth position in the Constructors' Championship. Although McLaren is currently holding the spot, its competitor has narrowed the gap to just 11 points after impressive performances by Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, securing double points in the Las Vegas GP.