Aug.25 (GMM) Reigning world champion Lando Norris re-emerged from the summer break with a second consecutive victory, while Oscar Piastri admits he still does not understand why his own McLaren pace disappeared so dramatically at Zandvoort.
Piastri arrived in the Netherlands believing Hungary had given him useful answers after narrowly missing victory there.
But he said after the Sprint: “A little bit surprising to not have the pace today.”
Then, while Norris converted pole into another victory, Piastri faded from the podium fight to P6, declaring that after the first stint he had “nothing”.
“I don’t know why – plenty to look into,” said the Australian.
Asked specifically what the problem was, Piastri replied simply: “The pace.”
“I don’t really have any more answers than that at the moment.”
“We will review the entire weekend and analyse to understand why we experienced such a significant performance drop off.”
Norris, meanwhile, believes his own recent improvement is about more than simply driving faster.
“I do believe I’m able to understand situations better, to understand the car in a better way,” said the world champion.
“It’s still just horrible to drive, but I’m doing a better job at just understanding this, relaying this to my team, figuring stuff out.”
Even so, Norris is not declaring McLaren the new benchmark or suddenly talking up his championship chances.
“We certainly have a car now capable of beating them,” he said of Mercedes.
“But I think they have a better all-round performing car than what we do. If I didn’t get Kimi when I overtook him, I don’t think I would have won the race today.”
Norris also believes his own form is helping to disguise that remaining car deficit.
“For once I would give myself a little bit of credit that I feel like I’m doing a better job than everyone, and I think that can also make a difference.”