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Brown: Maturing Piastri has lost his F1 “rookie stripes”

McLaren CEO Zak Brown says that Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris represent the “closest pairing” in the 2024 Formula 1 field, with the former having lost his “rookie stripes”.

Piastri has arrived at his home race in Melbourne in a much stronger situation than was the case on his debut last year, when the Australian GP was only his third F1 start and the Woking team was struggling with an uncompetitive car.

In his rookie season he also adopted a strategy of playing himself in on Fridays and building up his pace over the course of a weekend.

This season he has been pushing Norris hard from the off, logging eighth place in Bahrain and fourth in Jeddah.

"He continues to get faster and faster,” said Brown when asked about Piastri’s progress.

“Obviously, we're two races in, but what we're seeing is he's got his rookie stripes off now. And so on Fridays he gets on the pace right away.

“He doesn't really make mistakes. He's extremely fast. I think for the first two races of the year, it's the closest driver pairing in the field.

“And that's exactly what you want as a team. And I think they're pushing each other, they're pushing the team. So I'm very excited about our driver line-up for the foreseeable future."

Source: Autosport

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