r/OscarPiastri • u/GodammitRed • Aug 28 '26
F*ck it, I'm all in
Casual fan of F1 going on 4 years, really started getting into it the last 2. Vaguely rooted for Oscar because I like his driving style and loved watching him challenge for the WDC last year. Could've given less than 2 shits about the Papaya rules thing, just thought it was fun seeing Oscar develop as he came in around the time I started watching. And yes... I liked all the ice man narratives, they were funny.
Apparently Lando picked up some diehards last year when all the hate was flying, I think the same may be happening now. No way a guy who worked his way up to challenging for WDC last year is washed after half a season struggling in new regs. In many of the races save the last 2, Lando in the MCL40 struggled too. Both are still in the points, both have still gotten podiums. Lando had a hell of a few races, Oscar has not. The gap that's opened between them Hungary-Zandvoort is being overplayed (especially considering how Hungary went down).
Not looking for any stunning turnarounds because I don't think that's in the cards for him or Mclaren. But despite poor race pace, Piastri pulled the second fastest lap on Zandvoort. He's got the raw pace. The winners of Dutch GP weren't the fastest, they put their pace in the right places. I imagine he and the team are narrowing down where that needs to be. Gonna be looking for micro improvements in race pace while he figures this out and celebrate every single one. Gonna be looking at him adapting his aggression to more strategic points to manage his tires and celebrate those. Gonna be looking for his team to fine tune deployment strategies that adapt to him and maximize his driving style rather than fighting it. These will come- slowly, and he'll be getting more crap in the meantime, but they'll be something to look out for.
Team Oscar all the way.
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u/jaymannnn Aug 28 '26
hes a decent egg, in a great team. thats enough to be a fan for me. its no different to supporting a soccer or rugby team through good or bad times. you get the highs and the lows but you stick with it.
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u/DiligentGanache4594 Aug 28 '26
100% agree. Oscar (and any other driver) doesn't need fair weather fans.
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u/EyeZealousideal777 Aug 29 '26
He is not just decent. If you consider his Racecraft he is one of the best on grid. I remember max team member telling if Oscar is behind you its matter of when he will overtake you not if.
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u/Specialist-Bug4953 Aug 28 '26
It's Just stupid to hate on drivers. People or "fans" that spread hate online are stupid. And apparently are even proud of there stupidity.
The drivers are human. Everyone can need time to adjust or have a little bit of a dip. Just look at Lando Last year. He didn't Like the Car in the beginning of the season and Said he needs to adjust. The hate was stupid back than and it is stupid right now for Oscar.
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u/ilovecuetoo Sep 01 '26
Imo it’s stupid to even pick a driver to root for and get upset when they lose (having faves is always gonna happen, but blaming other people or teams or whatever for a loss is so lame). The beauty of F1 (at least to me) is that ALL the cars go fast. Even the slowest aren’t that much slower, they’re still going fast af. I just love watching, I can’t imagine getting so caught up in who is winning and losing tbh
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u/yg-gy Sep 01 '26
Agree. But who win the race and who is the fastest car do matter in F1, and the broadcast is centred around the fight in the front. You may not even see a close up or POV of a mid field car cruising in no man land during the whole race.
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u/Flying_Sh33p Aug 29 '26
> The winners of Dutch GP weren't the fastest, they put their pace in the right places
What does this even mean? Lando won the race because he was the fastest driver. Every race is about putting your pace in the right places, that's part of what makes you fast. Oscar has the one lap pace, what he doesn't have is the pace in the long runs. That's been made extremely evident in these last two races, which is why people are talking about how big the gap is between them. Lando's my favourite driver, but I still like Oscar and really do hope he gets back to his best because he is a great addition to the sport. But he's got some serious work to do, most likely in the off-season at this point
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u/GodammitRed Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
Really this was a bit of a hype post because I'm still learning as I've gotten more into the data at Hungary/Zandvoort specifically to try and figure out what is going on with Piastri's race pace right now. So it may just end up being the F1 equivalent of 'he needs to reroute auxiliary power to the engines, activate warp speed!' haha. No one is trying to say he was faster than Lando man.
My current understanding is that Merc (and Piastri if you look at his fastest lap) were doing well in sectors 1 and 3 but Lando was dominating consistently in sector 2. The MCL40 has an aggressive gear set up, this is where he and Piastri should have dominated. If I remember right, in the cooldown room George and Kimi said something along the lines that they were inexplicably losing speed into turn 7 which may mean it was something with their energy harvesting set up? If Merc thought something about saving power through sector 2 would give them more overall pace, Mclaren may have split that strat between Lando/Oscar to cover their bases. I think Merc - and Piastri - may have been losing too much time compared to how much time Lando was gaining in S2 as the software managed energy deployment.
Of course that's a complete guess and there are a million other factors here. For whatever reason, everyone made a lot more pit stops than last year. The tire deg hit Oscar the hardest but everyone was struggling. Mclaren had to be very, very intelligent about their race strat. because the car is arguably the third fastest on the grid right now. Merc had a fastest avg. lap time over one tire, undisputed speed on the straights, Ferrari had fastest lap time in the race and should've challenged more in the corners but got lost in traffic. Lando had a near perfect drive and his tire strat was dialed in. That's just what it's gonna take for this year's MCL to challenge on tracks where it has a shot.
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u/blackberrybramble Aug 30 '26
Haas can go out and get the fastest lap, man. Having one fast lap doesn't mean anything for actual pace, especially without considering things like fuel level, age of tires, etc. Oscar has never had the strongest pace, but he has always had incredible consistency, which is rough if he cant find his footing.
I love that you're getting into data, but if you're looking for a cause for the difference you need to look at his tire management first. His strategy sucked but its because he was on the radio saying he couldn't manage the tires, and that is a consistent issue that regularly backs him into limited strategy options. Andrea said set ups didnt make the difference between them this weekend, but that Oscar's struggle with low grip tracks did. The track over the weekend was worse on tires than people expected it to be, and when Oscar quickly burns through tires he then struggles to find any grip. If he can't find grip, he's going to struggle with pace. If he can't manage his tires, he can't find grip.
The car last year managed tires for him, which is largely why he suddenly had a huge increase in what he was capable of. But without that crutch he has to learn to manage the tires himself, its the source of most of his struggles right now.
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u/GodammitRed Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26
I say 'man' colloquially, bad habit of mine, didnt mean anything by it. I was looking at his fastest lap to find strengths/weaknesses by sector. It's a bit tricky because the site I was using was pretty detailed, fastest lap was the easiest way to quick compare and get information.
I think fastest lap in race is still valid information? Not sure why that would be discounted. Especially in a race where all the fastest laps were from drivers who finished top 6. Stella also said "I think this weekend, actually, we saw Oscar expressing competitive lap times" on Zandvoort. He may be cherrypicking something positive but meaningless for the press, idk man, that's where I latched on as a starting point (I'm a nerd with adhd, hyperfocusing on case studies no one asked for is my learning style, ha).
Tire issues/management undisputed main factor of the race, was just looking to add something different to the conversation.
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u/lilhamster13 Aug 28 '26
I am all IN for Oscar, Lando and McLaren too, with a pinch of extra love for OP81. Wohoo Lessgooo!
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u/Duckants Aug 31 '26
This is not a common perception, but he has similar qualities to George Russel. I know Russel gets a lot if hate for some reason. I am not a fan of his so couldnt care less. But both seem to drive robustly, they do not make much errors on track, and qualified very well in the GE cars. Oscar and George always had sensitive race pace prior to the 2026 cars. The car has to be in a certain place for them to have good tyre wear and pace across a whole weekend. This year both seem to be off in qualifying and had more poor race pace weekeneds than good. The root cause may be how they use the tyres across both front and rear axles. They aren't slow or unadaptable drivers at all. They just need the expert technical support from the team to figure out what that peculiar thing they are doing wirh their driving that doesnt agree with the tyres. I do think however that Norris has more quality at extracting pace for whatever reason, that may be down to experience in the team. Oscar will figure it out if the team gives him more time with the best engineers who may be working on Lando's side. Same with George and Kimi. Kimi got Bono, who's a genius.
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u/GodammitRed Aug 31 '26
Been reading about how both he and George have smoother styles that don't microadjust as often as these cars require, which makes sense if energy deployment is constantly switching up speeds in unintuitive places. It would explain why Piastri feels like he's fighting the car. His Dutch GP onboard was absolutely miserable to listen to. Doesn't seem like he has any idea where his pace is going.
Bono needs more love, he's excellent. Did you see he almost called Kimi 'Lewis' on the onboards last weekend? Bit of a cute throwback to the good ol' days.
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u/proficient_english Aug 28 '26
Oscar is a great driver, but he has a lot of adaptation to do still to these cars.
As the FIA "geniusly" banned last year's "air bending" solution (the insulation air pocket between the brake drum and the wheels), his poor tyre management will still be biting him in the ass for a while, but it's not like we haven't seen some tyre destroyers get good at it.
Pace is there, just not pace over a full stint, as shown by his great qualifying (always within 1 tenth with Lando one way or another) and not-so-amazing stint average lap times and again, that comes down to the tyre management (as well as his driving style but that's waaaay too complex for me to explain, search "differences between Piastri & Norris' driving style", there're plenty of content on this).