Oscar Piastri has admitted that Interlagos is “pretty tricky” to master, with this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix being his first ever trip to the circuit.
The rookie entered the weekend as a complete novice of the circuit, having never completed a lap around it in any series.
With it being a sprint weekend, Piastri hasn’t had much time to learn and understand the venue, something which perhaps played a part in him going off the circuit on his only hot lap in Q3.
Piastri went off at the penultimate corner on Friday which has left him in P10 for the race; however, he’s confident that the MCL60 has some great speed.
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Lando Norris proved this on Saturday by claiming sprint pole, before finishing the sprint race itself in second.
As for Piastri, the Australian qualified in P10 for the sprint, which is where he finished.
The McLaren driver has been “happy with the pace” of the car but thinks his “execution” has been his downfall, giving him something to learn for Sunday and the remainder of the season.
“The speed in the car is definitely there,” said Piastri, as quoted by Speedcafe. “Lando showed it today, and even for myself, it was looking good until the last two corners where it went very wrong.
“So definitely a few lessons to learn from this weekend, for myself especially, and also for the team as it is pretty tricky around here to get it all together.
“For the first time, I was happy with the pace, just unfortunately the execution has not quite been there.”
Piastri was involved in a great battle during the sprint with Daniel Ricciardo, who was being held up by Carlos Sainz.
Ricciardo failed to find a way past the Ferrari driver, which led to Piastri opting to overtake the driver he replaced.
Unfortunately, Piastri was also unable to get past Sainz and ended up being re-overtaken by Ricciardo, due to his tyres starting to struggle in the latter stages of the sprint.
It was somewhat frustrating for the young McLaren driver but he’s at least learnt for Sunday that “overtaking is definitely doable”.
“The first half of the race there was obviously a lot of battling, and I felt like I was quite quick, but I didn’t have the pace to use it,” Piastri added.
“It was a good battle with Dan. I could see I was a bit quicker in the first few laps, and he was quicker than Carlos.
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“The opportunity was there. I thought I might be able to get past him and then get Carlos as well but I used up a lot of my tyres trying to do that.
“Maybe I over-pushed a bit too much at the start, and then paid for it in the last few laps because after making the move on Daniel at one point, I didn’t really have much left after that to go and get Carlos.
“It didn’t make life easy, but I’ve learned that overtaking is definitely doable.”