In an era of no testing and with sprint events compromising track time on race weekends it’s not easy to come into a high-profile team like McLaren, especially alongside a driver of the obvious talent of Lando Norris.
In addition Piastri had spent a year on the sidelines, having not raced since his last F2 event at the end of 2021. Private testing with an old Alpine in the first part of 2022 gave him some valuable F1 mileage, but that programme came to grinding halt after his move to McLaren was announced in the summer.
