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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri claimed that he didn't have the pace of the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell as he finished P3 at the Belgian GP. The Aussie driver started the race at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps in P5 and made the position on his teammate Lando Norris at the start.
Although he didn't have the pace to overtake the Red Bull of Sergio Perez, he was able to undercut the Mexican and take the provisional podium spot. In the final laps of the race, he made the pass on Charles Leclerc to take P3 on track in an outstanding move at the end of the Kemmel Straight.
Speaking with F1TV, Oscar Piastri, despite finishing just over a second behind race winner George Russell, believed that he did not have the pace of the Mercedes duo ahead of him. He said:
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"We didn't quite have enough speed. It took me a couple of laps to get past Charles and I overheated the tyres. Clearly the pace for George, staying out there on one set of hards was the right thing to do, but we didn't have enough pace to mow him down and even Lewis, didn't quite have enough.
"I think we did a lot of things right, gave ourselves the best opportunities we could but it wasn't quite enough."
Oscar Piastri analyzes his P3 finish at the Belgian GP
McLaren driver Oscar Piastri stated that the clean air at the Belgian GP made the difference for him as he was able to up his pace and attack the cars ahead.
As quoted by the aforementioned source, the 23-year-old said:
"Yes. But clean air was such a big difference. Once I got clean air in the middle stint, I picked up a lot of pace and I managed to get a nice tire delta for the last stop but clearly didn't need a tire delta, just needed to keep going as George showed! Very happy with the result. We managed the race very well. I don't think we could have done too much more."
It was Oscar Piastri's second consecutive podium finish this year as he got his first race win at the Hungarian GP last weekend. Heading into the summer break, the Aussie driver has climbed into P4 in the Drivers' Championship ahead of Carlos Sainz with 164 points and now trails Charles Leclerc in P3 by just ten points.
