McLaren faltered at the start of F1 2023, Piastri qualifying only 18th for his first grand prix while Lando Norris was 11th.
Neither driver made the points in that event, Norris the better placed of the pair in 17th at the chequered flag.
The squad’s first points only came in Round 3, the Australian Grand Prix, when it benefitted from a carnage-strewn event to leave Melbourne with 12 points.
It was the high point of the opening half of the season before an upgrade introduced for Norris at the Austrian Grand Prix transformed the squad’s fortunes.
A podium contender that weekend, it revolutionised the team’s year and thrust it into serious contention.
McLaren scored points in every race from that point on in F1 2023, including seven podiums for Norris and two for Piastri as the squad rocketed from last in the constructors’ standings following the opening round to fourth by year-end.
That trend continued in F1 2024; a slow start building into a strong season.
This year, the ceiling was higher with both Piastri and Norris winning multiple races each, and the latter mounting a challenge for the drivers’ championship.
While the Brit fell short in that competition, McLaren did secure the constructors’ crown for the first time in a generation.
“It’s kind of back into familiar territory from a lot of my junior racing,” Piastri told Speedcafe in today’s episode of the KTM Summer Grill.
“Obviously there’s a lot more at stake in Formula 1 in the constructors’ championship than any of the teams’ championships before, or even drivers’ championships.
“It’s been not, not too daunting [or] overwhelming.
“It’s been just a lot of fun and a satisfying thing to try and target.”
McLaren’s success in the teams’ competition this year was a close-run thing.
As Red Bull faulted, Ferrari lifted its game in the latter part of the season and mounted its own challenge.
The Scuderia fell just 14 points shy following Abu Dhabi, a race won by Norris as Piastri found himself nerfed by Max Verstappen at the opening corner.
McLaren’s success was especially impressive given it left the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with a 114-point deficit to Red Bull, which headed the title race at the time.
It highlighted McLaren’s remarkable surge as the year wore on, and the fall from grace of its Milton Keynes rivals. It highlighted the need to start the year stronger.
Even still, being on the fringes of championship contention was somehow familiar, though on a far more grandiose scale.
“The first part of the season, we lost a lot of points to Red Bull and Verstappen in the drivers’ standings, so trying to claw that back has been incredibly tough for both of us,” Piastri said of his own unlikely title charge, and that of his team-mate.
“The pressures that come with the championship fight start to come back, which, again, is kind of a familiar feeling.
“But I think it’s definitely amped up a little bit when you know you’re trying to get a Formula 1 championship.”
By the end of F1 2024, four teams were in contention; McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull, with all four having claimed wins and even one-two results over the course of the record-setting 24-event campaign.
From week to week, especially in later events, results swung as the fortunes of teams rose and fell based on the circuit itself and prevailing conditions.
Upgrades too played a key role, nosing one of the four teams ahead but seemingly only momentarily.
Throughout the ebbs and flows, McLaren remained the constant; a challenger each and every weekend perhaps without ever enjoying ultimate domination at any point.
When viewed in the context of the championship as a whole, and against the steady progress McLaren has made since Austria in 2023, it’s a trait that enthuses Piastri heading in to 2025.
“There’s a confidence within the team that’s very strong,” he observed.
“The developments we’ve been able to make in the last 24 months across the car have been pretty remarkable.
“The big thing for us is everything we’ve put on the car has delivered what we expected.
“There’s been certain points this season where the developments behind the scenes maybe didn’t come quite as quickly as we would have liked, but once we were happy with them, we put them on the car, and they worked as we wanted.
“We’re probably one of the only teams on the grid that can say we’ve been happy with our correlation through the whole year.
“Ferrari had a few struggles with correlation there in the year, Red Bull kind of still going through them towards the end, and Mercedes, Vegas, for example, they were very, very fast, but I’m not sure they still know why.
“Having that correlation and understanding is very important,” he added.
“Of course, you need the lap time to back it up, but hopefully we can continue that kind of confidence and correlation into next season, and that’ll put us in good stead.
“The regs are getting so complicated and the aerodynamics getting so complicated that they can often fall over themselves, so I think finding that limit is a very important thing for next year.”
The F1 2025 season kicks off in Melbourne with the Australian Grand Prix on March 14-16, the first of 24 events that sees the championship only conclude in Abu Dhabi next December.
Watch the full episode of the KTM Summer Grill below
Discussion about this post