Oscar Piastri has had a brilliant run in recent weeks, but the McLaren F1 ace’s luck ran out in the sprint on Saturday in Miami when the safety car timing tipped the balance in favour of Lando Norris.
A couple of hours later he ended the main qualifying fourth, having lost out to Max Verstappen, Norris and Kimi Antonelli.
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Afterwards he was brutally honest about the mistakes he’d made in Q3 in the sort of manner that we’ve come accustomed to with his team mate.
“This afternoon was nothing to do with luck,” he said when I asked about the outcome.
“It was just not the level of execution I needed to have in Q3. It’s never a great qualifying session when your best lap is the first lap of Q2. There was quite a bit left on the table, a few mistakes on both laps in Q3 which is a shame.
“Both laps of Q3 I struggled at Turn 1. I think I lost pretty much two-tenths in Turn 1, and then my first lap of Q3 I kind of gained it back a bit through the rest of sector one, and then fell away in the middle.
“The last one I eventually recovered some of it at the end, but it wasn’t enough. So this was nothing to do with preparation. It was just execution of the driving, unfortunately.”
Piastri had no doubts about his potential speed had he got it just right.
“I’m not concerned about the pace I had today,” he said. “It was just that, unfortunately, I didn’t use it when I really needed it. And, yeah, I think after the lap in Q2 I just never quite got back into the same rhythm.
“And that was kind of the difference at the end. So some things to look at, for sure, but I know exactly where it went wrong, which is frustrating. But better than asking some questions.”
At the start of the season many people thought McLaren would be dominant and run away with everything, but it’s not been quite like that, especially over one lap.
Verstappen has had a great run of poles for Red Bull, while Ferrari and Mercedes have taken the top spots in the two sprint events.
In other words McLaren has to enjoy a perfect qualifying session in order to be on top.
“There’s definitely still some things with our car that we want to try and address, and driving it right on the limit is one of them,” said Piastri.
“I think this weekend it has had enough pace to be on pole. It’s just that I’ve not done as good a job as I should have, unfortunately.
“I think it’s always been tight. The gap has always been closed, and potentially our advantage has been a little bit more on Sundays. But I think our picture of where we stand has always been that if we make mistakes, where we’re going to be beaten. And that’s been true through the year.”
It remains to be seen if things will turn around in the Miami race.
“It’s hard to say, honestly, the tires have behaved a bit better than most people have expected, I would say, compared to last year. If it’s hot, that might help us out a little bit, but qualifying is still going to make a massive difference for tomorrow.
“So it’s not going to be easy to make progress, but I’m confident in the car that we’ve got.”
Adam Cooper F1 