Oscar Piastri believes that Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix will be a "very good test" of McLaren's new-found strength after the team's impressive displays in Austria and at Silverstone.
McLaren locked out the second row of the grid for this afternoon's 70-lap race at the Hungaroring, with Piastri clocking in fourth in qualifying just 0.211s behind teammate Lando Norris.
The performance follows strong runs in the last two races for McLaren's updated MCL60 and demonstrated once again that the team is a force to be reckoned with at the front of the field.
"I think we were optimistic – well, I was optimistic anyway, that we could be still in the fight with the teams we were around last weekend; maybe not at the front of that pack, but I think we’ve shown today that we can still be there," Piastri said, assessing McLaren's performance after qualifying.
“Wasn’t the best of Q3 laps for myself, so I’m quite happy to still be in fourth, but I think behind us it’s been incredibly tight.
"If I was one-tenth slower, I’d be 10th and saying we’re not the second quickest team or third quickest team!
"It’s been a good confirmation that we can come to another track, very different conditions, and still be quick."
©McLaren
McLaren has so far implemented two instalments of its three-stage upgrade programme. Significant changes were introduced in Austria and at Silverstone to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of its MCL60 and more revisions will follow after F1's summer break.
Overall, the updates have provided a performance boost to the team's contender while mitigating tyre degradation, a crucial factor on race day.
"I think we had some doubts, for sure, at Silverstone that we’d be able to back it up in the race," Piastri said, quoted by Speedcafe.com.
"If anything, we were almost quicker in the race than relative to where we were in qualifying.
"We’ll see. It’ll be a very, very good test for us if we can be strong tomorrow.
"It’ll be a hot race, a very high deg race. If we’re going to be strong tomorrow, then I think we can be very optimistic that we should be pretty good [at] most of the places we go to."
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