McLaren responds to Oscar Piastri's "not ideal"…

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella thinks Oscar Piastri sitting out FP1 for rookie Leonardo Fornaroli had a bigger impact on his Hungarian GP weekend than not trialling the team's new floor until Saturday.

Piastri has been on the back foot compared to team-mate Lando Norris all weekend in Budapest, by first having to cede his car to rookie runner Fornaroli in FP1, and then remaining on the team's original specification in FP2 while the team tested the latest upgrades on Norris' car.

That approach yielded useful comparative data for McLaren, but it also meant that it took until Saturday morning's FP3 session for Piastri to have proper track time with the latest floor upgrade.

Piastri, who is known to be a slower starter as he builds up a race weekend, never appeared to fully recover from being on the back foot as he qualified fifth with Norris on pole. However, being impeded by Lewis Hamilton at the start of his final Q3 flyer meant it wasn't clear what the Australian's ultimate pace would have been.

Piastri rued having to wait for the new floor until Saturday, while missing FP1 also appeared to be especially detrimental at the tricky Hungaroring, which was in poor condition all weekend with some of its newly-resurfaced tarmac and disruptive gusts of wind.

"Missing FP1 definitely had a bit more of an impact than I thought it would, because the track conditions have been pretty different to what we've been used to," Piastri said after qualifying fifth, which became third on the grid after penalties for Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli.

"In saying that, the conditions on Saturday have been quite a lot different to Friday, but it's just been difficult to catch up. And I felt like with every lap through qualifying, I was slowly getting there. I felt like I needed that second lap in Q3 more than most weekends and to not be able to do it was quite frustrating."

Oscar Piastri, McLaren (Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images)

When asked by Motorsport.com about not testing the new floor until Saturday, he said: "It wasn't ideal. Definitely, you don't want to be changing big parts on the car like that if you don't have to. It's just not been a particularly smooth weekend with missing the first practice and then getting used to that."

Team principal Stella insisted missing FP1 was a much bigger factor for Piastri than not getting the new floor until FP3, because the new floor was able to add downforce to the car without changing its aero balance.

"The main impact to his weekend was the fact that he missed FP1, rather than not having the new components," Stella explained. "When the conditions are so difficult, you get in tune from a driving point of view. Oscar was paying a bit of a price, certainly, of having missed FP1.

"The new parts, especially the floor, adds downforce without changing the characteristics of the car, so I don't think this is a major factor. Oscar was on a good run of improvements in qualifying. So, if anything, I would say the biggest regret for him is not having been able to do the final run in Q3."

Stella said McLaren would keep alternating on future occasions when it wants to perform a back-to-back test of new and old components, with Piastri set to get priority on the next update in Friday practice.

"Normally, in terms of priority for our drivers, we alternate," Stella added. "At the previous event, Lando missed FP1 and this was the time for Oscar to miss FP1. And when it comes to introducing new parts, normally we would alternate, even in terms of priority to test the new parts."