McLaren’s Oscar Piastri couldn’t help but lament a single error that prevented him from achieving the best qualifying result of his Formula 1 career.
Piastri’s frustration came after his teammate Lando Norris provided a much-needed boost for the struggling McLaren team by finishing in third place in the qualifying session at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The young Australian, disappointed with his 10th-place finish, believed that he had the potential to match his more experienced teammate’s performance if not for the costly mistake during his counting lap in the final qualifying session.
“It was a shame I didn’t get it done today. We were right there the whole qualifying, I was on a good lap, and then broke too late into turn 10 and went into the wet part of the track, and my lap was over from there. It was a shame – we could have had both cars up there I think. I just ran out of talent,” Piastri told Viaplay.
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“It was a shame I didn’t get it done today.
“We were right there the whole qualifying, I was on a good lap and then broke too late into turn 10 and went in the part of the track that was wet and my lap was over from there.
“It was a shame – we could have had both cars up there I think. I just ran out of talent.”
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown chimed in, acknowledging the team’s progress with a positive remark. However, Piastri couldn’t help but scold himself further, jokingly admitting that one of the drivers could have performed better.
Despite his disappointment, Piastri acknowledged that a 10th-place finish would have been a reason for celebration in the earlier races of the season.
“If you had given me a P10 [10th on the grid] in the first five or six races, I’d have been super happy, so I guess it’s a nice problem to have in some ways, but I’m quite annoyed with myself that I didn’t get more out of today.”
If Piastri had replicated his performance from the second qualifying session, where he secured a spot in the final shootout with a lap time of one minute 13.059 seconds, he would have finished in seventh place.
Nevertheless, Piastri remains hopeful of scoring points in the race, having been promoted to a P9 starting position after Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was given a six place grid drop.
Piastri acknowledged the challenges ahead but also recognised the opportunities that may arise during the race.
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“Staying in the points won’t be easy, but at the same time, I think there are some opportunities ahead as well. We’ll see what we can do,” he said.
Meanwhile, Norris was astonished by the significant improvement in McLaren’s performance, especially after lacklustre performances during Friday’s practice sessions.
“I’m shocked to be here. We’ve not really brought anything to the car this weekend, the last upgrade we had was Baku with the floor, and even that didn’t give us a lot of performance, just a different direction to go in.”