McLaren’s Oscar Piastri described his Friday at the F1 Monaco GP as “very messy” following a trip into the wall during the second practice session of the day. He got it all wrong at turn 1 and hit the barriers. As the impact was straight on, he only broke his front wing.
Despite bringing out the red flags, Piastri managed to recover to the pits and resume the session with 35 minutes to go. He finished the day in second place in FP2, hot on the heels of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was half a tenth faster.
Piastri: ‘Tricky’ day one of F1 Monaco GP
While his FP2 performance showed some promising pace, Piastri’s FP1 result was a slightly different story, finishing P5 behind Williams’s Alex Albon.
When asked about his day, Piastri described it as “tricky”:
“The whole day has been a bit up and down. I think when we get everything together, the pace is quite good, it’s just not proving that easy to do at the moment,” he said.
“So some things to look at, especially for myself. It’s been a very messy day, so [I’ll] just try and reset a bit tomorrow because I think the pace in the car is there.”
Piastri: Ferrari looking fast ahead of F1 Monaco GP
Charles Leclerc finished on top of both practice sessions at his home Grand Prix, with his teammate Lewis Hamilton sandwiching Piastri in third.
Piastri pointed out that Ferrari’s newfound pace is not lost on McLaren, but it was his own “messy” performance that stopped him from finishing higher up the grid:
“Clearly Ferrari are looking a lot stronger here than they have done, but I think for today it’s more just been on my side that’s been quite messy. Plenty of things to learn, and I think tomorrow will be an interesting day.”
Lando Norris: F1 Monaco GP is “stressful but good fun”
Lando Norris had similar grievances about the Circuit de Monaco’s difficulty level, describing the track as “stressful”.
That said, Norris stated that he felt comfortable from the outset, despite finishing fourth and third (behind his teammate) in FP1 and FP2 respectively:
“It’s always good fun here. It’s always stressful but good fun. Just difficult to get some clean laps and things at times.
“But, a nice feeling. I felt comfortable from the beginning, but need to progress more in some areas.”
Norris: “Many different things” can go wrong at F1 Monaco GP
Norris stated that he agreed with Piastri’s sentiments that the MCL39 is hard to get to grips with around the track, putting particular emphasis on the requirement for perfection around the narrow streets of Monaco:
“It’s difficult to describe the things, but we’re talking small things, it’s not huge. When you’re talking about hundredths here and there, it’s a lot of small things that add up.”
He continued: “Just too difficult to get the braking right, to get the cornering right, to get the tyres, the grip, the feeling all in the perfect window. There isn’t one answer for the question there, it’s many different things.”
