“I felt like I did a good job” - Oscar takes positives from challenging weekend

Oscar believes he can take plenty of positives from his own performance at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, despite the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team lacking the pace to challenge at the front in Sepang.

The Australian crossed the line in P6 in a stop-start race, which was delayed due to heavy rain, and featured two Safety Car periods. Oscar and Lando started on Medium tyres, but the Australian pitted at the end of the first lap and switched to Intermediate tyres on a damp track.

He dropped down the field but, on the quicker tyre, soon started to gain ground and was P10 when the first Safety Car was deployed on Lap 9, following a Valtteri Bottas spin into the gravel. Oscar soon moved onto Hard tyres on Lap 9 before repeating that choice on Lap 33. That left him in P8 and chasing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc when Alex Albon retired, and the Safety Car was deployed for a second time.

Oscar switched to Medium tyres for the final sprint to the end and, in more chaos, gained a place behind the Safety Car as George Russell retired on track. That lifted him to P6, where he eventually finished after a superb battle with Liam Lawson.

“Overall, I am reasonably happy,” he said. “I think it went pretty well on a personal note, I felt like I did a good job today, which is good. Unfortunately, we weren’t quick enough to really do that much. The last Safety Car was a bit of a shame because I was catching Charles pretty quick, but apart from that, it was a tricky afternoon.”

Oscar and Lando, who finished P9, will now head to Singapore for the last race of the triple-header. The weekend offered valuable lessons, with Red Bull’s recent gains providing a clear benchmark as we look to unlock further performance.

“Red Bull have been incredibly fast here, it is the strongest they have been,” he added. “Whatever they put on the car in Baku has really worked for them. Last weekend, they had a bad Qualifying, but Max almost won the race, and here he did win the race.

“Us and Ferrari are in a similar ballpark, but that isn’t fighting for race wins at the moment. We need to improve, we know that and we will try our best to make sure we do that.”

Meanwhile, Lando is looking ahead to one of his favourite races of the season after a frustrating weekend. After qualifying in P6 and starting the race from P5 due to Isack Hadjar’s grid penalty, he stayed on the Medium tyres for the first stint of the race and lost ground on a wet track.

He fought back to P9 but then dropped two places behind the second Safety Car after being forced to take avoiding action and run into the gravel at T1 when George Russell stopped on track, and the field closed up behind him.

He fought his way back during the five racing laps remaining and crossed the line for two points.

“We didn’t do a very good job today. We made some wrong decisions, which can happen,” he said. “It happens in racing, so we’ll learn from it, and we’ll see what we can do better.

“We go back to a track I enjoy driving next weekend in Singapore, so we’ll review, learn and improve. That’s our goal for next weekend.”