Piastri dismisses 'conventional track' theory; identifies new risk

Oscar Piastri has dismissed the idea that he can push more in Formula 1 now that the series is set for a run of 'conventional' as opposed to street circuits.

Of Piastri's seven Grands Prix thus far, five of them have been on street tracks in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Miami and Monaco in a tricky run to start the season.

Fellow rookie Nyck de Vries has struggled on these tracks but showed an upturn in form in the more conventional and familiar surroundings of Barcelona.

And Piastri has identified a risk of racing on these so-called more 'conventional' circuits.

Piastri on upcoming tracks

"Not so much," explained Piastri when asked by RacingNews365.com if he had more margin with which to push in Barcelona.

"The risk of damaging the car here is lower, but the lap time penalty for not finding the limit is probably higher than [street] circuits because everyone's got a lot of laps, especially around here.

"You can really find the limit without taking too much risk, so everybody is really pushing to the max.

"From that point of view, it is a different risk. I definitely felt a bit more comfortable [in Spain] than I did in Monaco, especially in qualifying.

"The last few weekends, it's just come alive in qualifying for me, so I still want to work on getting up to speed a bit earlier in the weekend.

"But I am looking forward to another new track next time out [in Canada], it's a tricky one as well so that'll be fun to learn a new track.

"It changes the mindset a little bit as obviously I need to learn the track, Canada is basically a street circuit as well with how close the walls are, so yeah, maybe I need to take that into consideration a little bit."