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Piastri finished seventh last weekend in Barcelona as his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris challenged Max Verstappen for victory.
It was a curious weekend for the Australian who was uncharacteristically unable to match Norris.
Analysis since the event has revealed the reasons for the subdued performance.
“There was definitely some things on car set-up that certainly caused some problems,” Piastri revealed.
“Some things were not major but had, let’s say, much bigger consequences than maybe we thought at the time.
“There’s a lot of evidence to support why I struggled a bit more; definitely a couple of things in terms of driving as well, but I think we’ve got some pretty clear answers.”
The revelations came as part of McLaren’s debrief process following last weekend’s race.
With the Spanish GP the opening leg of the first triple-header of the season, there’s been little time to test out the theory in the simulator.
However, by working through the decisions, and with Norris’ data for comparison, Piastri and the team are satisfied they understand where the weekend went awry.
“Just talking and looking through the offline simulations of some of the effects of certain things, which then lead to other decisions, and you can snowball pretty quickly in situations like that,” Piastri explained.
“We’ve certainly got on top of some of the decisions we made, and I guess some of the consequences.”
Piastri added that the differences between his car and Norris’ were comparatively small, but it was the cumulative effect that cost him.
“It’s never major things,” he said of the set-up differences between the two cars.
“Even some of the set-up decisions we made were not major things, but had consequences that lead to further decisions – and suddenly a small difference can become quite big.
“We had the whole team working on trying to sort it out,” he added.
“It’s probably the first time there’s been such a big difference like that.
“I think we’re all pretty confident that we’ve gotten on top of it and looking forward to starting on the front foot this weekend.”
McLaren heads into this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix arguably on par with Red Bull Racing in terms of favourites for victory.
It has been the most consistent squad all season and is the only team to have had both drivers finish in the points in every race.
The Austrian Grand Prix marks the fourth Sprint weekend of the season, leaving teams just an hour of practice before competitive running begins.
Off the back of Spain, Piastri is confident that he’ll be on the pace from the outset.
“Barcelona aside, I’ve been very comfortable with the car from the first lap of practice,” Piastri said.
“We should be pretty confident that we can hit the ground running.
“Last weekend was maybe a bit of a reminder that it’s not always easy to achieve that, but I think we should be confident that we’ll be strong out of the blocks.”
Opening practice begins at 12:30 local time today (20:30 AEST).
