McLaren’s Oscar Piastri: “Disappointed to miss victory in Japan, but Mercedes is beatable”. Oscar Piastri celebrates his second-place finish at the Japanese GP .

McLaren satisfaction at Suzuka

At McLaren, there was plenty of reason for satisfaction after Oscar Piastri’s second-place finish at Suzuka, even if he crossed the line fifteen seconds behind the leader. The Australian secured his first podium of the season in his first full-length race, while teammate Lando Norris claimed a solid fifth place ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.

Piastri on the missed victory

The first critical moment of the Grand Prix was, once again, the start. Both Mercedes cars had less-than-optimal launches—especially Kimi Antonelli—which allowed Oscar Piastri to take the lead in a move reminiscent of Valtteri Bottas’ 2019 start against Sebastian Vettel: “I’d say it was good, but not exceptional. I immediately saw Kimi sliding and didn’t quite understand what George was doing. Then, having to go around Kimi, the rest of my start was a bit compromised. But it was enough to take the lead, so clearly that was one of our strengths today,” commented Oscar.

From there, the pace on medium tyres was encouraging for McLaren, as Oscar Piastri was able to pull away from Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari while staying out of reach of Russell’s W17, which seemed slightly quicker but not enough to attempt a pass. During those laps, in a radio exchange with his engineer, Oscar Piastri had even glimpsed a chance at victory if he could maintain track position after the first—and only—pit stop. McLaren preemptively covered Russell’s potential undercut and successfully kept position.

The Safety Car changes the race

However, a few laps later the Safety Car was deployed, benefiting Hamilton but especially Kimi Antonelli, who emerged as the race leader and set an untouchable pace on hard tyres. Oscar Piastri reflected: “It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened without the Safety Car. I think I could have kept George behind, and just before the pit stops, we were starting to extend slightly. I would have loved to see how the race would have unfolded. I need to check if Kimi was faster than George or on the same pace. If they were similar, it would have been a stressful afternoon because I’d have both of them attacking. But once in clean air, Kimi was clearly much faster than me. I’m not sure we would have won, but I would have really liked to find out.”

In fact, live footage showed that Antonelli in clean air during the first stint was around four-tenths faster per lap than Piastri. Combined with the hard tyres giving the W17 an advantage, it’s likely that the victory would have gone to Toto Wolff’s team regardless.

A strong weekend for McLaren

Considering McLaren’s disastrous start to the season, the Suzuka weekend was a statement of strength, especially versus Ferrari, as the MCL40 still runs the Barcelona package. Piastri said: “I think being disappointed with a second-place finish is still a very good position for us. We knew we could keep the Ferraris behind in the race. Huge thanks to the team: we really executed everything well with what we had. Clearly, we still need more performance, but today we made the most of every opportunity.”

Piastri: “Mercedes is beatable, we must keep improving”

Unlike the first two rounds, the Japanese GP weekend went smoothly for Piastri, who felt immediately comfortable from Friday. Historically, he has always performed well at Suzuka, now securing his third podium on the Japanese circuit. This shows that at fast, low-degradation tracks, both Piastri and McLaren can compete at the front. He said: “I wouldn’t say there was a particular aspect that excited me, but overall we did a great job optimizing what we had. Even in practice we were in a good operating window, especially in FP2, and we managed to return there in qualifying. We had a good understanding of what we wanted from the power unit and how to set it for qualifying grip. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to win, but for us, a result like this feels almost like a victory.”

For these reasons, Piastri believes Mercedes will be attackable in upcoming races, especially with upgrades expected for Miami in a month. The mid-season break will be crucial for Woking to further close the gap to Mercedes in power unit management: “I think Mercedes is beatable. Last year, we saw that even with the best car you still have to operate at the highest level. Today, we did that very well. Once Russell returned to second, I thought he would pass me in about half a lap, and I would settle in second waiting for Kimi to do the same. It’s interesting to see that when someone else has the faster car, it’s not all that simple. The fact I kept George behind for so long is very encouraging. But we don’t fool ourselves: we did everything perfectly and still lost by 15 seconds, so the gap is still significant. I’m confident we can close it, but there’s still work to do.”