Oscar Piastri shared his impressions after the final day of testing and suggested McLaren isn't in the position to fight for race wins at the moment.
McLaren F1 driver Oscar Piastri joined the team ahead of the most recent season. In 2023, the Papaya team had a shocking start to the year.
Naturally, McLaren is in a much better position now, but the team would like to be the second-best at least, and early signs suggest that won't be the case. Speaking to the press in Bahrain after the final day of testing, Piastri said:
"I think it's not been the smoothest of tests overall for us, but I think this [Friday] afternoon we got a lot of good work done, which was good, a lot of laps."
During the last day of testing, Piastri completed 91 laps, and his best time was seven-tenths of the best lap of the session set by Charles Leclerc in Ferrari.
However, no team was pushing their cars to the maximum. In fact, the majority tried to hide their real pace, and we still might see some surprises during the first race weekend of the season this week.
"I guess we'll really find out what everybody's got next week, but it was feeling okay. I did a race distance, and I'm feeling in decent shape after that, so not too bad."
Similar to what his teammate Lando Norris said, Piastri expects both Red Bull and Ferrari to be ahead during the first race - the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
"I think Red Bull are a step ahead of everybody. Ferrari look strong as well, not to the same extent, but they look like a decent second fastest at the moment. We've got a bit of work to do, but it's not a bad place to be starting from."
It is undoubtedly a much better place than last season, and if McLaren managed to repeat the rate of development that they showed last year, they might pose a real threat to Red Bull.
However, that is still far away at the moment, and the 22-year-old suggests his team needs to make development progress before it can consistently fight for podiums.
"I think we're somewhere towards the front-end in the mix there, but if we want to start challenging for podiums regularly and trying to win races, we need to find a bit more."
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