Luke Smith

But I think we did see some good signs of hope in Japan, particularly from Oscar Piastri and McLaren.

I think they put in a

brilliant display and that did show that they can kind of light the fire under Mercedes a little bit but I think it's going to take a bit more time to take some steps forward I went up to McLaren last week and Oscar was pretty upbeat about things McLaren said that they're planning on basically a completely new car from Miami onwards so

a lot of car upgrades that should add some performance.

So, yeah, let's maybe keep an eye on them as the team that could possibly cut that gap to Mercedes.

But it's still a big gap to make up.

So I'd be surprised if anyone but Mercedes were to win in Miami this weekend.

it's been very much a boom or bust for uh yeah poor oscar failed to start either of the first two races uh spun out in that heartbreaking fashion in australia then uh an issue on his car in china and then in japan he puts in probably one of the best performances of his f1 career like

I saw an interview where he said that it's probably better than half of his race wins in F1 purely because he got every little ounce out of the car to finish second.

And it was a really good display.

So I think it's definitely showing the Oscars there.

He's still got the spark that made him such a force through points of last season.

And I think given the right car underneath him, he can definitely try and lead McLaren's charge going into this next phase of the year.

But I think the outlook after Japan is much better than it was after those first few races, because I think two races, two failures to start.

There was a few concerns and question marks over when is Oscar finally going to get back to his groove and get some luck?

yeah massively important i think um there's the old adage in f1 that the first driver you want to be is your teammate and that's very true and i think that for oscar last year it was so close between him and lando and i think that towards the end of the season obviously he had that slight downturn ended up losing the championship he's going to want to come into this year to prove a point he's going to want to show that look no i i have what it takes i can be the lead driver here and mclaren obviously have put so much emphasis in terms of treating both drivers the same and uh

ensuring those they get those equal opportunities but any driver is going to want to be like no i'm top dog here i can really really stamp my authority on things so uh yeah i think for oscar even if he can't fight for a world championship this year if mclaren can get into a point where it can start fighting maybe mercedes for race wins later in the year getting on the podium regularly you can bet he's going to want to be the driver who's doing that and uh yeah i think in japan we saw some some really good signs and

And it's nice to see that he kind of got his confidence back because I think there was a little bit of a knock-off to those first two races.

Much brighter and better, I think, compared to even this time 12 months ago or even at the very end of last season.

It was getting, I think, just a bit sort of sad to watch.