Oscar Piastri misses out on a McLaren double pole at Zandvoort because the last shot didn’t go in – He lost most of the time against Lando Norris in one corner
“I just didn’t do a good job, really!” – Oscar Piastri suffered his 13th qualifying defeat of the year against pole-sitter Lando Norris at Zandvoort. He also has to line up behind Max Verstappen on the grid, even though the McLaren was the fastest car
Analysis of the lap actually shows only two places where the Australian drives significantly differently to his team-mate. In the heavily banked turn 4 (or 3, depending on how you count it), he drives further “down” than Norris.
The decisive mistake happened in turn 11 (or 10), the long left-hander after the many right-handers in the second sector. Both McLaren cars have “power oversteer”, i.e. oversteer at the exit of the corner. This happens to almost all teams at this point. Nevertheless, Norris comes out of the corner smoothly, while Piastri steers much more strongly
Other than that, the Hungarian winner’s lap shows no mistakes, perhaps, like Mercedes, he was struggling with overheating tires in the second half of the lap. “The car was very fast this weekend and it’s a bit disappointing not to be further up the field,” says the 23-year-old. “The first half lap was pretty solid. The second half wasn’t quite what I had hoped for.”
“It was pretty good until the last run. Of course, I think that with the pace we had with the car today, P3 is not a result you can be happy with.” At least he didn’t have an accident like in 2023, which is good, he adds sarcastically.
“The rest of qualifying was pretty good. Everything went smoothly. Only at the end I didn’t quite make it. That was a bit disappointing, but from our grid position we still have plenty of opportunities. “
Updates do not change driving behavior
He is not prepared to accept that the latest updates to the McLaren MCL38 are more to Norris’ liking than his own: “The car still feels the same. We’ve gained a second and a half compared to last year, but it doesn’t feel that different. So it has nothing to do with that.”
“I think Lando just did a good job in the last attempt in Q3 and I wasn’t as good as I should have been. The updates do what they’re supposed to do. Especially when it’s this tight, every bit of performance you can get out of the car helps. The conditions were perhaps not the easiest to assess, but as long as the car gets faster, I’m happy.
And what’s to come from third place in the race? Piastri has not yet given up hope: “I will try to make a good start. That’s the first plan. And yes, the strategy could be an interesting thing tomorrow. We will see. I think Max has slightly different options to us.”
“But we have a very fast car. I hope we can use that for me to get a bit further up the field. “
