Oscar Piastri has been left in no doubt that further changes to this year's F1 regulations are needed following what he felt was a "pretty crazy" situation during the Miami Grand Prix.
After coming so close to the drivers' championship last season, Piastri's start to the current campaign could not have begun more disastrously after failing to complete a single racing lap in the opening two races, on home soil initially in Australia, and then a week later in China.
The 25-year-old McLaren driver finally kick-started his campaign with a fine second place in Japan, following that up with second in the sprint in Miami and third in the grand prix at the International Autodrome.
Rule tweaks were applied for the race in the United States following extensive talks between all the F1 stakeholders during the April break, focusing on safety, as well as ensuring qualifying was again a flat-out challenge.
For Piastri, given the nature of the circuit and the fact that he was forced to battle for his podium in the grand prix, he felt that what unfolded in Miami was his first real taste of this year's car. Crucially, he is convinced the FIA has not gone far enough with its changes.
"Reducing the harvest limit in qualifying helped a bit," said Piastri, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, when asked whether he felt anything more needed to be addressed. "It’s not fixed the problem or all of the problems, but it’s helping with one.
"The races are basically the same. I think [Miami] was my first proper experience of overtaking people and then having to defend and stuff like that. It’s pretty crazy, to be honest.
"At one point, George [Russell] was one second behind me and managed to overtake me by the end of that straight. It’s just a bit random.
"The closing speeds are huge, and trying to anticipate that as the defending driver is incredibly tough. Obviously, I wasn’t that pleased with one of the moves that George did.
"But I kind of found myself almost doing the same move about five laps later, just because the closing speed is enormous. So from that side of things, not much has really changed."
Although hailing the work done by all sides during the break, he has called on the FIA and F1 to do more going forward.
"The collaboration from the FIA and F1 has been good," he said. "But there are only so many things you can change with the hardware we have.
"So some changes in the future are, I think, still needed, for sure. How quickly we can do it is the big question."
Originally published by RacingNews365 —
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