Piastri hasn’t “mastered” F1 tyre administration, however it’s “night time and day” over 2023

Oscar Piastri reckons his capacity to handle tyres in Components 1 has undergone a “night-and-day” enchancment over his 2023 rookie season, however feels there may be nonetheless room to develop additional.

Though Piastri impressed in his debut F1 season final 12 months, the principle criticisms of his maiden season concerned his lack of expertise with managing the Pirelli tyres by means of a race distance – which often led to a race tempo drop-off versus Lando Norris.

This had improved over the course of 2023, though the Australian’s largest step in race stint administration arguably came visiting the winter and thus the 2 McLaren drivers had been way more evenly matched over 2024.

Norris nonetheless retained a slight higher hand when it got here to total race tempo, main Piastri to recommend that tyre administration was nonetheless but to be mastered after his second season.

“I do not know if ‘mastered it’ is the phrase I’d use. It is a lot improved however not mastered,” Piastri defined to Motorsport.com.

“I feel there’s been two or three races this 12 months the place it is nonetheless been – to not the identical extent as final 12 months, however nonetheless been difficult on that entrance, however I feel it has been a night-and-day enchancment in every single place else.

“So I really feel like I do know way more proactively what I have to do to handle the tyres now, which you sort of must study the exhausting approach, by means of expertise, which could possibly be fairly painful. So I really feel like I’ve made actually large enhancements there.”

Piastri revealed that though follow allowed the drivers to experiment, the stint lengths had been so quick that it was inconceivable to achieve significant expertise of tyre administration past the races.

He mentioned that, having taken ‘painful’ classes by means of 2023 in understanding the bounds of the Pirelli tyre, he was now glad to have taken the hit in his rookie season to put the foundations for the longer term.

“It is very troublesome [to work on] as a result of you’ll be able to solely do it within the races. I imply, you’ll be able to attempt to do it in follow and put the constructing blocks in,” he added.

“However in follow you by no means fairly know if it’ll work or not, as a result of clearly the runs we do are nowhere close to a race distance.  

“So a few of the methods you should use and a few of the stuff you need to apply, you’ll be able to apply, however they do not all the time provide the clear solutions that you just’re after. Solely the races can try this.

“So it is just about making an attempt it within the races, which may be very troublesome and clearly very painful at occasions, as a result of in the event you get it fallacious, you clearly cannot simply push restart and take a look at once more. That is the race end result.  

“And yeah, that was a bit irritating at occasions final 12 months, however I really feel like, once more, it has been a great enchancment to this season, so I am completely happy to have gone by means of these experiences.”