McLaren driver Oscar Piastri qualified P3 this afternoon at the F1 Monaco GP. The Australian qualified behind teammate Lando Norris on pole and hometown hero Charles Leclerc in P2. Qualifying is everything at the historic Monaco GP, so P3 sets Piastri up well for Sunday’s race.
Piastri on his “messy” weekend so far
Piastri discussed his struggles with consistently logging clean laps during the three Monaco GP free practice sessions. Relatively speaking, Piastri’s McLaren struggled through practice, placing P5 and P2 in Friday’s FP1 and FP2, and P4 in FP3 on Saturday.
Piastri found his footing in time for qualifying on Saturday afternoon, but he still lacks confidence in the car. In the post-qualifying press conference, the championship leader spoke on his “untidy” practice sessions and positive qualifying performance.
“I think I’ve hit more walls this weekend than I have in my whole career, so it’s been untidy. But yeah, just been struggling to get into the groove a bit.
“I think in qualifying I was much happier with things, and I felt pretty good. But yeah, we’ve been doing some digging this weekend, and to come out with this result is a decent effort.”
Teammate head-to-head between Piastri and Norris falls in Norris’s favour
After finding the groove, Piastri was putting in purple sectors as time wound down in Q3, his second last lap being just 0.15s off of teammate Lando Norris. On his last push lap, Piastri improved his time to a 1:10.129, but it was ultimately not enough as Norris logged his sub-1:10, pole-winning 1:09.954.
“The laps I did at the end of qualifying felt pretty good. Obviously not quite enough, but yeah. I think at a track like this, when you’ve had a messy build-up, you’re always going to leave a little bit on the table.”
Norris logged some seriously blistering laps during qualifying. The British driver didn’t place a tyre wrong and showed his ability to extract everything out of the car when it mattered. Piastri admitted that beating his teammate in Q3 at the Monaco GP was going to be a serious feat.
“I think to beat Lando today was going to be tough. So well done to him. But no, still pretty happy with it. It’s been a pretty messy weekend so far, so to come out with a lap that I thought was pretty good and third is a decent result.”
New race parameters introduce new challenges at historic Monaco GP
This year’s Monaco GP will introduce a mandatory two-pitstop rule, which is sure to shake up teams’ race strategies. Historically, a one-stop race, this new mandate opens up another opportunity for error, making race strategy of the utmost importance. Sunday’s race potentially will require some teammate collaboration as a result.
When asked if he would be willing to sacrifice his own race to help Lando to victory, Piastri simply stated, “How much are you going to pay me?”
This new rule opens up the opportunity for a proper shakeup of the running order. As F1 cars have gotten progressively bigger over the years, passing through Monaco’s narrow track has become incredibly difficult in this era. Piastri stated in his interview that while overtaking will not be any easier this year, the pit stops are sure to make a big impact on the race result.
“It’s just that instead of kind of having one pit stop where you need to manipulate things around, there’s two. And you have to use three sets of tyres. I mean, the cars aren’t smaller, so the overtaking is still not going to be very high, I don’t think. But there will be a lot more uncertainty with strategy.
“We have thought about [the strategy], but a lot depends on where you qualify. So we’re in good positions, obviously. But yeah, it’s still gonna be an exciting race tomorrow with the two stops. So, let’s see what happens.”
