SPANISH GP – Oscar Piastri beats Lando Norris to pole by two tenths with Max Verstappen third
Oscar Piastri has beaten his McLaren teammate Lando Norris by two-tenths to take pole for the Spanish Grand Prix. The Australian took pole with the biggest advantage of the season setting an 11.546 as both McLaren’s looked to maintain their advantage after topping all three practices, with Max Verstappen third just under a tenth behind Norris.
Piastri went into qualifying having topped two of the three practice sessions and then went ahead of his teammate on the final runs in Q3, after a very scrappy final run by Norris allowed the Melbournian to go fastest. Verstappen couldn’t respond but he is managing to keep himself in the fight by being behind both McLaren’s.
Up until the final runs in Q3, Piastri and Norris had been even matched with under two hundredths between them until on the final runs Norris only fractionally improved, opening the door for Piastri to go even faster. Norris took advantage of a short-lived tow at the start of his first Q3 lap from Piastri, who pulled out of the way and slowed as quickly as possible when he realised his team-mate was trailing him as he completed his own effort.
On his second run Norris did go fastest in the first sector, but Piastri delivered perfection behind him to triumph by the largest margin between first and second in any qualifying session this season. A huge step up from the expectation of Norris leading the charge for McLaren this season.
Verstappen, meanwhile, tried a different approach to his prep lap to warm up his tyres which while it didn’t allow him to fight for pole did move him up to third.
McLaren’s impressive display made a nonsense of speculation coming into the weekend that the runaway Constructors’ Championship leaders would be hampered by a technical directive introduced in Barcelona limiting the permitted level of flexion in front wings. But they have had their most dominant weekend of the season which many will see as a sign this championship may remain between the two of them.
Piastri added, “Very happy. It’s been a good weekend so far. It didn’t start off in the best way, we were struggling a little bit, but last night we found some pace and today the car is mega and feel I have been able to put in some good laps as well.”
Verstappen said, “We were lacking all weekend compared to them [McLaren]. We executed well. Third is where we more or less should be. It’s fun. Around here it’s about squeezing everything out of the car. I will try my best [in the race] but they will be tough to beat.”
George Russell put his Mecedes fourth after setting the identical lap time as Verstappen, but the Dutchman starts ahead after setting the time first. Russell was almost two-tenths faster than his former teammate Lewis Hamilton, who spilt the two Mercedes after going nearly seven hundredths faster than Kimi Antonelli.
A year ago, Russell made a brilliant start to overtake both Norris and Verstappen around the outside of Turn One. He said, “Very close with Max and Lando, definitely not in the fight for pole but other than Monaco we have been in the top five every qualifying. We know that’s where the car is on a Saturday.”
Hamilton managed to out-qualify Charles Leclerc for the second time in GP qualifying this season, as the Monacan went two hundredths behind Antonelli with Pierre Gasly nearly seven hundredths further behind.
Though Hamilton was half a second off pole, said he was “relatively happy with it” because it had been “definitely an improvement from where we’ve been”. Leclerc went into qualifying having used a set of softs in final practice to ensure he had an extras set of mediums for the race.
He did a half-lap on a second set of softs in Q2 in case he needed to improve to ensure he progressed. He managed to abort it, but that left him only one run in the final session, which he did early. Leclerc said that made qualifying “tricky” and added: “I hope our tyre choice will pay off tomorrow.”
It was another impressive qualifying for Isack Hadjar putting his Racing Bull went ninth just over half a second behind Gasly, with Fernando Alonso completing the top ten. The two-time champion took a different approach to Q3, doing just a single run in between the normal first and second runs putting himself third. It was always unlikely that he would have been able to fight for a higher position, though in the clean air he went fifth fastest at that point in the session.
Alex Albon went eleventh the Williams driver missing out by three hundredths as none of the bottom five managed to improve at the end of Q2. Albon going over a tenth ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto, a decent session for the Brazilian. Williams had gone into the weekend playing down expectations and perhaps rightly with Carlos Sainz knocked out in Q1.
Liam Lawson put his Racing Bull thirteenth going nearly three-tenths faster than Lance Stroll with Ollie Bearman a quarter of a tenth further behind. Nico Hulkenberg missed out on Q2 by half a tenth as he put his Sauber just over a tenth faster than Esteban Ocon with the second Williams of Carlos Sainz two thousandths behind.
Franco Colapinto put his Alpine nineteenth as he went half a tenth faster than Yuki Tsunoda completing the field.
Related
- SPANISH GP – Oscar Piastri leads McLaren one-two going half a second ahead of Lando Norris in third practice
- SPANISH GP – Oscar Piastri fastest by just over a quarter of a second in second practice
- SPANISH GP – Lando Norris fastest by three and a half tenths in first practice
- Welcome to the Spanish Grand Prix