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Piastri arrived at home in Melbourne in a much stronger situation than on his debut last year, when the Australian GP was only his third F1 start and the Woking team was struggling with a car not very competitive.
During his rookie season, he also adopted a strategy of playing alone on Fridays and increasing his pace over the course of a weekend.
This season he pushed Norris hard from the start, claiming eighth place in Bahrain and fourth in Jeddah.
“He just keeps getting faster and faster,” Brown said when asked about Piastri’s progress.
“Obviously we’re two races in, but what we’re seeing is that he’s now taken off his rookie stripes. So, on Friday, he gets into the rhythm straight away.
“He doesn’t really make mistakes. It is extremely fast. I think for the first two races of the year, they are the closest driver duo in the field.
“And that’s exactly what you want as a team.” And I think they push each other, they push the team. So I’m very excited about our driver crew for the near future. »
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Mark Horsburgh / Motorsport Images
Brown admitted Piastri is more relaxed in Melbourne than he was this time last season.
“Last year was also a very difficult start to the year,” he said. “So on top of that, add the pressure of being a rookie and then coming to your first home race and you’re also in a race car that’s not that strong.
“So I think he’s got a year under his belt now. He knows what to expect. He’s got a much better race car that he’s sitting in, and so he really appreciates it. And it’s nice to see him mature.
“He’s already a mature young man, but you can definitely see that a year later he has a higher level of confidence because he knows what to expect. And I think this will allow for even better performance from the headset.
Last year, McLaren scored no points in the first two races and the team was 10th and last in the world championship going into the Melbourne weekend.
“It’s a lot better this time,” Brown said. “It was the first race where we scored points last year, and even then we inherited some after the incident at the very end of the race.
“All the men and women at McLaren continue to do a fantastic job. I feel like we kind of picked up where we left off in the second half of last year. The peloton has never been so tight, so we have to continue to push hard.
“But I think we have designed and developed a very strong race car that will hopefully become stronger, but we know the other nine teams are not sitting idly by.” Our drivers do an excellent job. There is a lot of harmony within the racing team.
“So I think we’re in a really good position to continue to improve and move forward, and I’m pretty excited to race a lot more this year.”
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