Following Qualifying for the F1 Singapore GP, Oscar Piastri reflected on McLaren’s unexpected lack of pace, Alex Albon’s Q1 incident, and his outlook for Sunday’s race around the Marina Bay Circuit.
Piastri surprised by lack of pace
After dominating much of the season, McLaren has recently encountered stronger competition, particularly with the resurgence of Red Bull. However, it was George Russell’s Mercedes that claimed pole position, with Max Verstappen lining up second for Red Bull and Piastri in third.
When asked if he was surprised by the pace shown by Mercedes and Red Bull during the post-Qualifying press conference, Piastri admitted, “Yes.”
He explained that his first lap in Q3 felt reasonable, but despite that, he ultimately finished almost four-tenths of a second off pole—a larger gap than anticipated after encouraging performances in the practice sessions. The Australian described the deficit as “unexpected.” He added that the team will analyse the data to determine where they lost time, especially since recent weeks have posed greater challenges.
“I mean, I think my first lap of Q3 felt reasonable. It certainly didn’t feel four-tenths off bad. So, I just don’t think we had the pace tonight, which is a little bit of a surprise for us. It has been very tight through all of practice, but I think we were relatively confident going in. So, yeah, some things to look at and see where we’re lacking. But we’ve not had the easiest last couple of weekends. So, it’s not a huge surprise in some ways because of how it’s gone recently, but I do think we felt after practice we had a better chance.”
Incident with Albon in Q1
Piastri experienced a difficult start to the session, when a brief yellow flag interrupted his flying lap. The caution was, ironically, triggered by Alex Albon’s Williams, which went off track to avoid hindering Piastri’s flying lap. When asked if the interruption affected his session, Piastri downplayed the incident, saying, “Not really.”
While the interruption may not have impacted his run, Piastri did admit that the incident left him ‘playing catch-up’ in Q1.
“Anytime on a street circuit you don’t do laps is frustrating, and I did feel like through Q1 I was playing catch-up a little bit. But ultimately, it didn’t really affect much.”
The Australian did, however, question the necessity of the flag, considering Albon was making room on the track. Piastri believes that the incident should be taken into consideration when making further adjustments to the yellow flag rules.
“It was obviously frustrating to have a yellow flag thrown for someone getting out of the way. There’s been a lot of adjustments on the yellow flags and stuff like that, but I think there’s still some tweaking to do there, because Alex [Albon] did the best job he could to get out of my way, and it ended up costing me a lap anyway. So, some things to look at there.”
Chances for the race
Looking ahead to the race, Piastri expressed doubt about his chances of gaining positions in tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix. He noted that overtaking is particularly difficult on the tight and twisty Marina Bay Street Circuit without a significant pace advantage. Furthermore, several interruptions during practice left teams, including McLaren, with limited long-run data, making it difficult to accurately predict race pace or strategy outcomes.
“I hope so, but it’s very tough to overtake around here. You need a fair bit of extra pace to get past someone. So, we’ll see if we’ve got that tomorrow. But the long running has been kind of tough for everyone with red flags, and no one’s really done that much. So, I wouldn’t say we’ve got more confidence than we had going into Qualifying for the race, but we’ll see what’s possible.”
