Piastri not 100 percent happy after F1 testing

Oscar Piastri has admitted that he’s not completely happy with his driving following three days of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain.

The Australian will race for McLaren this season with last week’s outing his first chance to sample the team’s 2023 car.

He spent three sessions behind the wheel of the MCL60, sharing duties with team-mate Lando Norris, in what was a difficult test for the team.

McLaren clocked the fewest number of kilometres of all teams as issues curtailed its running.

However, it remained a valuable outing for Piastri who continues to embed himself with his new team and bring himself back up to speed after a year spent on the sidelines.

“I think I’ve ticked most of the boxes, I feel like I’m in a pretty good place heading into next week,” Piastri said of his testing experience.

“I think there’s still a lot of improvement I can make. I’m not 100 percent happy with my driving, but I think with a day and a half in the car I’m never going to be fully comfortable.

“So I’m getting there, making progress I think throughout the three days.”

While not totally comfortable with the new car, or happy with his own driving, Piastri did feel he improved over the course of the three days of F1 testing in Bahrain.

The Merlburnian is just one of two rookies on the 2023 grid (potentially three in Bahrain should Lance Stroll prove to be unable to race) together with Williams’ Logan Sargeant.

At the launch of the McLaren, Piastri noted the challenge that awaited him given the lack of seat time available at the test.

Piastri completed his pre-season running midway through the final day.

“I feel like I’ve had good moments here and there but putting it all together is an area for improvement, let’s say,” he said of the test.

“There’s been good moments there – I think obviously the spin [Saturday] morning wasn’t one of them – but apart from that, I feel like it’s been going well.

“My understanding is good, it’s just unfortunate that we don’t have more laps to then try and improve on that on track.”

Piastri will make his F1 debut in this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix which begins with Free Practice 1 at 14:30 local time (22:30 AEDT) on Friday.