Mixed feelings at McLaren as Oscar Piastri takes pole for tomorrow’s Belgian GP sprint. On the other side of the garage there were less happy feelings as Lando Norris only managed third with more than six tenths between him and his team mate.
Norris puzzled about gap to Piastri
Looking back at his performance Norris had a hard time pinpointing the issue in his final lap.
“Not quick enough, I guess,” he pondered. “It wasn’t the cleanest of laps, but still quite a big gap to the top. Not too disappointed, third for the sprint, so not a big worry, but some things to work on.
“It’s just Friday, so I’m not too fussed. Not the happiest, of course. I’d like to be a bit quicker than I was today, but it’s the way it is.
“I just have to do some more work tonight, that’s all.”
Some of that work will involve whether the tyre preparation was optimal, as Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle suggested the young Briton might have overcooked his tyres on the warm-up lap.
“It’s impossible to say. Maybe it made my tyres better. You don’t know those things, but we’ll look at it overnight.”
Piastri had a “bit of a scare in SQ2”
Piastri was obviously a happy chap after securing pole for the Belgian GP sprint, but he was close to being kicked out after SQ2. Liam Lawson was less than half a tenth slower, but for the young Ozzy it was enough to continue.
“It was a little bit of a scare in SQ2,” Piastri admitted. “But I’m very happy with the lap on soft at the end. I feel like I got it mostly together. I certainly pushed the limits and maybe overstepped it in a couple of places, but it was a good lap.
“Nice end to the day.”
His survival in SQ2 was by the smallest of margins, but his gap to second in SQ3 was one of the biggest in recent memory. With 0,477 seconds to Max Verstappen in second, the championship leader made his intentions clear for tomorrow’s sprint.
“I was a bit surprised, yes. Sprint qualifying is always really tough because you go into a different compound at the end. And Spa is a track where you make a mistake in one corner, and then there’s normally a massive straight to make you pay for it even more.
“The gaps are normally a little bit bigger around here, but I’ll certainly take it.”
Coming off a few races where Norris slowly but steadily came closer, Piastri is confident he can be competitive tomorrow. And that’s despite the fact he feels pole position is pretty worthless around Spa-Francorchamps.
“Spa is probably one of the worst places to have pole positions,” he explains. “It is what it is, but I think the pace in the car all day has been really strong, and I’ve felt very confident. Hopefully we can get a good start and try and win the sprint tomorrow.”
