Oscar Piastri says he would be willing to give up victory in the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix to teammate Lando Norris if asked.
McLaren locked out the front row of the grid on Friday afternoon, with Piastri pipping Norris by just 0.029s on his final attempt of the session. Prior to that, Norris had looked quickest throughout Sprint qualifying, but starts second as he looks to close the gap to Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship, and Piastri admits team orders could come into play on Saturday.
“We’ll see what the pace is like tomorrow for both of us,” Piastri told Sky Sports. “I think first and second is the first objective, and then we’ll see where it is. I know I’m not in the running for the drivers’ standings, and for the team it doesn’t matter which way round we are. So I know that’s the case, and we’ll see what they say.
“Yes, I said I would [give up a win] from when we first had these discussions. It would be nice to win, but it’s one point different and it’s not the main race. We’ll see — Lando needs the points in the drivers’ standings a lot more than I do, but of course I still want to win. If I put in the effort and have good pace, I’m sure that won’t go unnoticed, but let’s see.”
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Piastri says his lack of a second lap in SQ1 actually hampered his performance slightly as he looked slightly adrift of Norris for a spell, but that he managed to get on top of the high track evolution by his final attempt.
“The very first lap of the session in SQ1, I put in a really good lap, and then I didn’t do another one at the end of SQ1. The track was just really moving on really quickly — I think it was like a second and a half faster by the end,” he said. “So I think I was catching up a little bit through the rest of the runs, and the last laps on softs, they hung on for a second lap, which was nice, and I managed to put it on pole.”
Piastri insists he was expecting McLaren to have strong pace at Interlagos, but believes the Sprint will be tough for drivers given the bumpiness of the resurfaced track.
“It was coming together maybe a bit better than we expected, but I think we felt pretty comfortable after P1 this morning,” he said. “I think everybody was kind of thrown off a bit by just how bumpy the track was, so I think there were a lot of setup changes going on — the order was a bit jumbled. But I think we were confident that on paper we should be pretty strong, and I think that session showed it.
“I think seeing at the end of the straight is the first objective! It’s bad — it’s really, really bumpy, and I think everyone’s had to change a lot of things on their car to make them somewhat comfortable, but we’ll see. The grip is actually quite good, it’s just that trying to keep all four wheels on the ground at once is not that easy. The track is constantly evolving.”