Weeks after his maiden win, Oscar Piastri rues the "missed opportunities" of the opening half of the season, insisting "it could have been even better".

Fourth in the standings, ahead of Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez, the Australian youngster should be feeling pleased with himself, after all, recent events suggests he also has his experienced teammate rattled.

However, despite the Hungary win, Piastri believes that there's room for improvement.

"I think I've made good progress on things that I wanted to improve from last year," he tells Speedcafe. "Some of the goals I had from the end of last season, I think I've done a good job of tackling and made clear steps in some of those areas... I would say all of those areas.

"There's still of course room for improvement," he adds, "but I think it's been a good step forward."

Unlike last year, the 2024 McLaren has been competitive from the get-go.

"I think the big thing has been largely positive, from both a team point of view, and from a personal point of view," he says, reflecting on the opening half of the season. "The team have given Lando and I a car that's capable of winning races.

"The biggest positive obviously is that we've thrust ourselves into contention with a car that's incredibly quick," he adds. "That's really the biggest thing."

However, despite being fourth in the standings, due to a number of woeful strategic mistakes, and a couple of his own errors, it could have been even better, as he is the first to admit.

"There's kind of the feeling of a few missed opportunities with some things that were out of our control," he says. "Like Miami, the track limits in Austria, I mean, technically that one was in my control, but it wasn't really given how it was deleted. And then a few that were in our control, Silverstone being the most recent one; Canada a little bit, to an extent Imola with the qualifying penalty...

"So I think largely positive," he adds. "But I feel like there's potential to do even better, which is obviously a very exciting position to be in."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 07/08/2024 2:44

"@Mad Matt.....I like that summary quote, something i've seen quite a few times lately. There are certain instances/events that occur during a drivers career which are pivotal to their future success or failure. To cite a couple of them....Multi 21 comes to mind as that was a major turning point in Webber's ultimate decision to leave. Baku was a turning point for Ricciardo as he has stated. Somewhere on the internet there's a pic of Ricciardo wirth a bunch of excited fans, holding a placard that states, 'I will never apologise'. Hungary will be an instance that Oscar will file away in the memory bank as well, for future reference. What we can look forward to is increased action as both Piastri and Norris battle for supremacy hopefully without too much intervention...."

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2. Posted by Spindoctor, 06/08/2024 22:34

"Oscar looks to me to be a more talented driver than Norris. His performances have been very consistently improving."

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3. Posted by Mad Matt, 06/08/2024 13:11

"@kenji Last year I saw a few cases where Lando seemed to get preferred pitstop treatment even if he wasn't in front... but this year I seem to remember Oscar sometimes getting the first stop too, even if he wasn't in front... apparently to cover off someone else.

As for Hungary... we've both said a lot on this subject but in short I don't think Lando behaved perfectly, better than a lot of drivers would... but the main source of the problem was a screw up by McLaren and as the saying goes "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." :-)"

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4. Posted by kenji, 06/08/2024 2:14

"@Mad Matt...Thanks for the response. The evidence to support the bias was plain to see. Once Norris was gifted precedence on the pitstop, based on a supposed threat' that was never likely to occur, Stella should've stepped in at the first hint of non compliance by Norris. To allow the 'negotiation' to last for 8/10 laps was ludicrous in the extreme especially if a safety car/yellows had occurred! Stella allowed Norris's race engineer to be humiliated as he pleaded for Norris to hand the place back and to the post race comments that they always knew that Norris would hand the place back is a cop out, a fall back to hide their weakness in the moment. What Norris did was try to get some sunshine at the expense of Piastri's great drive and his first F1 race win. During the season so far there have been other instances and it's always Norris who gets the 'rub of the green'.

If Norris can beat Piastri in a straight out fight for supremacy then that's fine by me. Six seasons of combined race wisdom should be a distinct advantage for Norris so let's see how the rest of the year plays out....the August break is too long."

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5. Posted by Mad Matt, 05/08/2024 15:00

"As I may have mentioned before I'm not a "fan" kind of person for individual drivers... but I have got a soft spot for a few and Oscar is one of them having seen him in the single seater section of the BTCC coverage when he wasn't much more than a kid.

I still don't think there's bias at McLaren (not like in the days of uncle Ron and Mika , not that Mika did anything wrong) and to me it seems there's a mutual respect and I especially like that Oscar doesn't throw his toys out the pram every five minutes :-)"

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6. Posted by kenji, 05/08/2024 14:08

"@Wokingchap....Fully agree. I sense a very cool determined drive with Oscar. He has a level of reserve that will prey on Norris's mind and that will help him to keep the pressure on. Despite certain protestations around an equal playing ground from Stella/Brown Piastri will know that he's been playing against a stacked deck. What I hope to see is some killer races from Oscar to firmly stamp out any further attempts by the team to favour Norris. I very much doubt that Norris can provide a big upset in the WDC without 'a lotta help from my friends'."

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7. Posted by Wokingchap, 05/08/2024 10:38

"Doing a fantastic job Oscar and the whole team (ncluding my friend who works in the wind tunnel), he certainly is in a very exciting position."

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There's room for improvement, admits Piastri

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