Oscar Piastri topped the crucial final practice session at the Mexico City Grand Prix ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris. FP3 was the first session of the weekend not interrupted by red flags, and with FP2 on Friday afternoon commandeered by …
Oscar Piastri topped the crucial final practice session at the Mexico City Grand Prix ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris. FP3 was the first session of the weekend not interrupted by red flags, and with FP2 on Friday afternoon commandeered by Pirelli for a 2025 tire test, teams had much work to do to validate set-up changes ahead of qualifying.
McLaren, which struggled for ultimate pace on the first day of running, emerged fastest, with Piastri rocketing to top spot with a best time of 1m16.492s. Teammate Norris, the only McLaren driver running the team’s newest floor, was 0059s adrift.
The papaya pace was mighty enough to upset Ferrari considerably, with Carlos Sainz 0.34s off the pace after having topped Friday running. The Spaniard was most confident of his car’s race pace but was optimistic the SF-24 would at least be in the fight over one lap with McLaren.
Sainz was comfortably McLaren’s closest challenger, though, with Max Verstappen fourth, 0.511s down on Piastri.
The Dutchman complained of having no grip at either axle after his fastest lap, losing the most time to the leaders in the final sector, particularly the technical stadium section.
Lewis Hamilton was impressed by his 0.568s margin in fifth, having felt he’d put together a quick lap only to find himself more than half a second off the pace.
Charles Leclerc was sixth in the second Ferrari, having lost most of his time in the second and third sectors, though the Monegasque would have competed for fourth had he strung together all three of his best sectors on one lap.
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Yuki Tsunoda was impressive in seventh for RB at 0.81s off the pace, beating Mercedes’s George Russell. Russell was driving a largely rebuilt car after his heavy crash in FP2, the team revealing car No. 63 required an overnight chassis change but that its engine and gearbox were salvageable.
Kevin Magnussen was ninth for Haas ahead of Liam Lawson completing the top 10, 1.002s off the pace.
Alex Albon was 11th ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Franco Colapinto just outside the top 10.
Sergio Perez struggled to 14th, 1.295s off the pace, the Mexican complaining of insufficient front grip to attack the corners. He lost just over 0.2s per sector to his teammate, though his best time would have been closer without a lock-up in the stadium section.
Fernando Alonso was 15th as the best-placed Aston Martin ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who said his Haas car was struggling with “numb” brakes early in the session.
Lance Stroll was 17th ahead of Esteban Ocon, Zhou Guanyu and Pierre Gasly.
Oscar Piastri says a move to Red Bull is not on his horizon following comments from Helmut Marko linking him with a switch from McLaren. According to German website F1-Insider, Marko claimed that former Red Bull driver Mark Webber – who is Piastri’s …
Oscar Piastri says a move to Red Bull is not on his horizon following comments from Helmut Marko linking him with a switch from McLaren.
According to German website F1-Insider, Marko claimed that former Red Bull driver Mark Webber – who is Piastri’s manager – has been pushing for talks about what the team might do with its driver line-up in future. However, when asked if that was a possibility for him in the coming years, Piastri refuted Marko’s claim.
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“Definitely not, I’m very happy where I am,” Piastri said. “I’m under contract for the next two years after this, and I’m certainly not looking to go elsewhere.
“It wouldn’t be a week in F1 without some comments from Helmut. Not massively [surprised], I mean, it’s a nice compliment, I would say, but again, I’m very happy with where I am, and I think they have quite a big pool of drivers that they can choose from if they want to.”
The comments come amid a constructors’ championship fight between McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari, and Piastri is hopeful that the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez will be better-suited to his car at the Mexico City Grand Prix than the last race in the United States.
“It’s quite different in a lot of ways to Austin, obviously the altitude and stuff like that makes it quite a different challenge, but hopefully it helps and suits us a little bit more,” he said. “I don’t think we necessarily expected Austin to be… ‘painful’ is a bit of an exaggeration, but not as competitive as we hoped, but it wasn’t a complete surprise.
“I think we’ve got some good ideas about why qualifying was so tricky, looking back at the weekend. I think the race itself was actually quite positive, especially from 12 months ago, it was more or less the same, especially with the first stint I was going with Lando.
“The second stint, a few mistakes in the middle of that hard stint, but for 95% of the race we were a very even match. And I think even just as a team, our pace was actually quite strong, it was just that we were very slow at the start of the race, and then everyone built the gaps and that was kind of it for us.
“So I think it looked a little bit worse than it was, it’s just that with the competition being so tight, if you put a step wrong, then you go from being first and second to where we were in fourth and fifth. It’s just a very tight field at the moment.”
McLaren has a problem. A nice problem, but a problem nevertheless. Oscar Piastri is just too good. It’s exactly the problem every team wants: two drivers who are both capable of delivering the best results. McLaren saw it in Piastri from his junior …
McLaren has a problem. A nice problem, but a problem nevertheless. Oscar Piastri is just too good.
It’s exactly the problem every team wants: two drivers who are both capable of delivering the best results. McLaren saw it in Piastri from his junior career and moved decisively to secure his services when Alpine failed to do so two years ago, and got the slightly fluctuating performances you’d expect from a rookie in his debut season.
But the progress was clear to see then – culminating in his first Sprint victory in Qatar – and has continued this season, to the point that Piastri beat Lando Norris in four of the past five races. And across the nine rounds that were held in Europe, he was the leading scorer with 146 points compared to Norris’ 140 (although it should be pointed out Norris wins that battle 158 to 156 when you include the Canadian Grand Prix in the middle of it).
McLaren might have been given headaches to deal with in terms of how it approaches its drivers’ championship pursuit of Max Verstappen, but those are welcome ones as they come as a mark of Piastri’s development.
“I would say definitely [I’ve seen the improvement] yes,” Piastri tells RACER. “I think a lot of the tracks where it’s my second time going there this year have been better. In qualifying, over one lap, I was generally OK in most places we went last year, but in some of the races I did really struggle.
“This year – apart from maybe China, which coincidentally was a new track (for me) – there’s not been any races where I’ve left the race going ‘I need to find a lot of pace here, and really need to dig into why’. So I think a lot of the tire management side of things, or just finding race pace, has been a massive step forward in the off-season.
“From Bahrain, which is always a tough track on tires, I set the tone to myself of, ‘I’ve made a big improvement here’. Yes, there’s still some things to go, but a big chunk of it, I now know what to do and am able to do it consistently.
“There’s still been different challenges – some tracks challenge a different axle a bit more, some tracks are higher deg than others – but I feel like for a general rule of thumb, I’ve improved massively in my race management and my race pace.”
Those gains have been clear to see, with Piastri taking his first F1 victory in Hungary, a race where he struggled with degradation and finished nearly half a minute behind Norris a year earlier.
His ability to deliver under pressure was on full display this past weekend in Baku, too, where he held off Charles Leclerc for some 30 laps despite not appearing to have a clear pace advantage. It showed how calm Piastri is running at the front, something he felt from an early stage of his rookie season.
“I think through my first season, I obviously didn’t win any races – well, I won a Sprint race, but that doesn’t count – but I think I had some good results. And if I was to pinpoint a couple, I would say even my second weekend in Saudi qualifying, to be in Q3 which at the time was a good effort for us, that was a good conference boost.
“Then having the weekend I did at Silverstone, I would say those two moments were kind of like, ‘alright, I’m not out of my depth here’. I never thought I was, but until you actually see the proof of it, there’s always slight question marks about it. So sfter that, I kind of felt like I belonged, and that I could really race at the front and take it to everyone.
“As you gain more experience with that, (the confidence) comes a bit more. Then obviously the back end of the year, getting my first podium, winning the Sprint race, that really cemented it for me. So I think winning in Hungary was more just the confidence boost of, I had an opportunity to win an F1 race, probably my first one that wasn’t hampered out of my own control, let’s say, and I was able to achieve it.
“That was where the confidence came from, rather than saying ‘I beat the other guys’. At the end of the day, we had a car that was quicker than everyone else’s, and it was down to us two as McLaren drivers, and I was proud that I managed to put in the work early in the race to make that happen.”
Piastri has pinky-promised to help Norris chase down Max Verstappen in the championship battle. But it’s entirely possible that at some not-to-distant point in the future, Norris will be asked to return the favor. Dom Romney/Motorsport Images
Even at this relatively early point in his career, Piastri has noticed that the expectations are growing. McLaren is now being a front-running team, and that has led to increased attention.
“I guess from the outside, yes, it does put a bit more expectation and a bit more spotlight on you of course,” he says. “But for me and the team, it doesn’t change that much. It always feels a little bit weird after qualifying, such as qualifying third and being disappointed. But when you’re chasing perfection and chasing the maximum potential of the car, which on that day was pole, it makes sense to feel that way.
“So I think the expectation of trying to get the most out of car doesn’t change at all. Obviously the results have a bit more weight behind them, but I think that’s more sort of the external perception, rather than inside. My mindset has always been that no matter what car we’ve got, whether it’s been a car that’s capable of scraping a point or finishing on the podium or winning the race, I always wanted to make sure that I made the most of that opportunity.
“When the car’s capable of finishing 10th, and you finish 10th, you feel happy. When the car is capable of finishing first, and you finish fourth – which is obviously a lot better than finishing 10th – it’s still not the most of the car can do. So from that side, I think it’s still the same.”
What isn’t the same is the team orders situation. Not in the sense that McLaren now says Piastri could be asked to support Norris in his pursuit of Verstappen when the situation calls for it, but just the fact that such instructions can come into play in F1 when they are essentially non-existent in junior categories.
“The reason for the big difference is in the junior categories you’re paying the teams, and in F1 the teams are paying you in 99% of cases. So that’s really where the difference lies.
“Even in the junior categories, though, maybe it doesn’t start early, but in the last race of the year, I’ve not had people pulling over for me to win championships, but I’ve had teammates not making life as difficult as they normally would for me. So I’ve kind of experienced it a bit before, and thankfully, I’ve been on the receiving end of the help.
“It is something to get used to, but in my eyes anyway, it is very easy to see when you join F1 just how much of a team effort it is. One of the differences is, instead of having 30 people working for you in F2, which seems like a lot at the time, you’ve got 1000. And when you consider how much money is put in, how many sponsors are involved, how many people are involved, you’ve got all sorts of things that there’s a much bigger picture than just ‘do it for me’, and it becomes very easy to put that into perspective.
“Of course, when you start fighting for race wins and championships at the end of the day, we’re racing drivers, and we want our own personal success. But I think for me, a real strength of the team is that we are allowed to have our personal success alongside the team success.
“I think Lando and I have worked incredibly well at, whilst we’ve been trying to get there, very much prioritizing the team. There’s never, ever been a situation – even now that we’re fighting at the front – between us in terms of egos.
“So I think that’s been a real strength for us, but it is something to get used to a little bit. Once you put the bigger picture into perspective, for me, it becomes a pretty easy decision in terms of doing it.
“Also, you know that the team is there to help you, and burning your bridges with the team you’re racing for is never a smart idea. So even if at the time, sometimes it might seem a bit painful, there is always a bigger picture.”
Given his rapid development over the past 18 months, that bigger picture could well lead to Piastri putting himself in a position to be fighting for that same support next year. Or perhaps even sooner, if something remarkable happens in the coming seven races…
Charles Leclerc says he misjudged how the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was going to play out and thought he would be able to re-pass Oscar Piastri to beat the McLaren after being overtaken. Piastri had dropped nearly six seconds adrift of Leclerc prior to …
Charles Leclerc says he misjudged how the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was going to play out and thought he would be able to re-pass Oscar Piastri to beat the McLaren after being overtaken.
Piastri had dropped nearly six seconds adrift of Leclerc prior to the pit stops in Baku, but closed up on the out lap on hard tires and quickly pulled off a clinical move into Turn 1 to take the lead. Leclerc says he could see Piastri might try to overtake on that occasion but that he wasn’t overly worried, believing the race would come back towards him later on.
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“Not really by surprise, because he wasn’t completely straight behind me,” Leclerc said. “He was a little bit on the left. So I could see in my mirrors that he was there and that it was a possibility for him to go there. But I couldn’t really be super aggressive. I still had cold tires. I was really struggling to get those tires into temperature.
“I just thought it wasn’t that much of a big deal if he would overtake me at that point of the race because the race was still long and the DRS would help me to stay within a second of him and then once my tires will be in temperature I could overtake him again. But that was a misjudgment from my side.”
Piastri was able to keep Leclerc at bay and then pulled away from the Ferrari in the closing laps, with Leclerc believing the difference in car set-ups also played a part in him being unable to regain the lead.
“It’s been a pretty frustrating race. We ran two different configurations. They had a lower downforce package. We had a bit more downforce, which made us quite quick in the castle section. However, on all the straights they were flying. And that’s probably where I lost the race. I misjudged that.
“And when Oscar overtook me into Turn 1, I was not too worried. I just wanted to stay within the DRS, keep my tires, and attempt an overtake later on. However, this opportunity never really arose again, just because we were too slow in the straights. Yeah, that was a small misjudgment, which had a big consequence.
“So sometimes it hurts, and it does, but it’s the way it is. On the other hand, it’s been a pretty good last couple of races in terms of performance. This weekend hasn’t been great, because obviously we’ve got Carlos [Sainz] that was in a good position that didn’t manage to finish the race. But within the team, we are in a good position in a good mood and we need to keep pushing in that direction.”
Oscar Piastri ignored a call for patience from race engineer Tom Stallard before making his race-winning lunge to overtake Charles Leclerc for the lead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Piastri battled Leclerc hard in the opening laps of the race, …
Oscar Piastri ignored a call for patience from race engineer Tom Stallard before making his race-winning lunge to overtake Charles Leclerc for the lead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Piastri battled Leclerc hard in the opening laps of the race, believing clear air to be key to victory, but overused his medium tires in the process, dropping him to 5.9s adrift by the time he made his pit stop on lap 15. Only Leclerc’s slow laps into and out of pit lane brought Piastri back into contention immediately after the Monegasque made his stop one lap later.
The Australian was implored to take a different tack with his second chance. McLaren analyzed his used medium tires and found he’d overused them, and he’d have to be much gentler with his new set of hards to get them the 36 laps to the checkered flag. Piastri gave that idea short shrift, leaning heavily on his tires for a late-braking overtake on lap 20 to take a lead he’d never relinquish.
“I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer because I basically tried to do that in the first stint and completely cooked my tires,” Piastri said. “My engineer came on the radio and said, ‘Let’s not do that again,’ basically, and I completely ignored him the next lap and sent it down the inside.
“It’s what won me the race.”
Piastri said he didn’t see the logic in playing a patient game in behind a car that was at least a match for the McLaren.
“I think at that point I felt like trying to stay back and wait for Charles to deg was never going to happen,” he explained. “I thought he was just going to secure us P2.
“A similar opportunity [came] in the first stint. I felt like on lap two or three I was just within DRS but didn’t fully capitalize on that opportunity.
“I got to the end of the straight thinking, ‘If I had have done a couple of things a bit differently here, I maybe had a chance.’ So when I had a similar opportunity after the pit stop, I had to take it.
“[The move] was a high-risk, high-commitment … but that’s what I needed to do to try and win the race, because I wasn’t really going to be that keen to finish second.”
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He was unable to pull away from Leclerc once in first place, with the Ferrari doggedly pursuing the lead.
“I knew that getting into the lead was going to be, let’s say, 40 percent of the job, but that hanging on to it was going to be 60 percent, and I knew that I’d use the tires pretty heavily to try and get in front and I knew what kind of impact that had in the first stint,” he said.
“Just trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly stressful. I couldn’t make a single mistake. I made a couple, but at a track like Baku it’s impossible to be driving flat out and not make any. I was just fortunate that they weren’t big enough that it cost me.
“The whole 30 laps where I was trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly tough.
“I think for me that has to be one of the best races I’ve done.”
Victory is the latest big result in a strong run of form for Piastri who is the sport’s highest scoring driver over the last 11 rounds. His 25 points also helped propel McLaren to the lead of the constructors championship for the first time more than a decade.
“It’s not just down to me,” he said. “We’ve had a car that’s been very quick and consistently quick in a lot of places, and even if we’ve not necessarily been the outright quickest everywhere, we’ve been in with a chance everywhere.
“Today was definitely one of those days where we weren’t necessarily the quickest, but we had a car that could put us in the fight. We had a pit stop that could put us in the fight. We had some teamwork that put us in the fight, and it all managed to pay off.
“I feel like I’ve been driving well. It’s been clicking a bit more for me this year in terms of the things I want to work on from last season. Combine that with a car that’s capable of winning, and results like this are possible.”
Oscar Piastri put on a masterclass in defensive driving to claim his second career victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of pole-getter Charles Leclerc after a controversial penultimate-lap crash between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz which …
Oscar Piastri put on a masterclass in defensive driving to claim his second career victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of pole-getter Charles Leclerc after a controversial penultimate-lap crash between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz which forced the race to end under the virtual safety car.
The result puts McLaren into the lead of the constructors’ championship for the first time in a decade, with a 20-point advantage over Red Bull.
Leclerc got the perfect start from pole and comfortably built a 6s buffer over the field while Piastri appeared to struggle with his opening set of mediums.
On a warm day that saw track temperatures soar to 110 degrees F, the Australian’s early parries with the Monegasque soon had him watching his rear-view mirrors for Sergio Perez, who had risen to third place on the first lap in pursuit of his first podium trophy since April.
Perez pulled the undercut trigger first, switching to the hard tire on lap 13. McLaren daringly left Piastri out two laps before pitting him, deploying Lando Norris, who started 15th, as a roadblock to prevent the Mexican from getting an undercut.
Piastri stopped for his own set of hards and rejoined fractionally ahead of Perez, and Leclerc followed suit on the following tour. But on the hard tire the Ferrari looked less impressive. Leclerc’s out-lap was slower than Piastri’s, bringing the McLaren into range, and suddenly the pole-getter was forced onto a defensive footing.
On lap 19 Piastri had hauled himself into DRS range but not close enough to sail past – though the Australian didn’t need it. From several car lengths behind Leclerc, Piastri was magnificent on the brakes, mugging the Ferrari with a perfect dive down the inside to emerge from the corner with the lead.
Leclerc tried to fight back into Turn 2 but was rebuffed, and Piastri only had to cover the inside line at Turn 3 to cement his lead.
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The race turned into a high-speed siege, with the two leaders pushing hard through the middle and final sectors hoping to force each other into a critical mistake exiting Turn 16 that would gift the following cars a slipstream.
Several times Leclerc and Piastri were spotted sliding out of that crucial corner, but both were otherwise error free.
The tense stalemate came to an end on lap 46 of 51, when Leclerc’s 30-lap-old hard tires suddenly gave up the ghost, their grip exhausted from the chase. Piastri bolted, escaping DRS range that lap and then piling on an extra second on the following tour to put his victory beyond doubt after a famous and grueling defensive drive.
“I went for a pretty big lunge but managed to pull it up, then hung on for deal life for the next 35 laps,” he said of his race-winning move. “The last couple of laps once [Leclerc] dropped out of DRS were a little bit more relaxing, but there’s no such thing as a relaxing lap around here.
“That definitely goes down as one of the better races of my career.”
Leclerc’s pain looked sure to be compounded by his rivals massing behind his stricken Ferrari, with Perez on his tail and teammate Carlos Sainz hoping to make a late play for the podium.
Perez made his move on the penultimate lap, sweeping around the Ferrari’s outside at the first turn, but Leclerc wasn’t prepared to let the position go without a fight.
Mustering the last of the grip from his tires, he got late on the brakes into the turn to harry Perez out wide and claim the corner. It cost the Mexican momentum and allowed Sainz to sweep into third. Sainz then had a rebuffed look around Leclerc’s outside into Turn 2, which in turn handed momentum back to Perez.
The pair ran side by side on the run to Turn 3 but dramatically came together halfway down the straight, triggering a big smash that sent both cars spearing into the inside barrier. The virtual safety car was triggered to neutralize the race, allowing Leclerc to cruise to the finish in second place.
LAP 50/51
WOW.
Leclerc defends from Perez, which allows Sainz past, and then the Ferrari and Red Bull collide into the barriers on the run down to Turn 3!
“We didn’t do any high-fuel running on my side in FP1 and FP2 and went for a setup direction that maybe in the race was a bit more difficult to manage,” he said. “Especially on the hard tires I was really struggling to keep those rear tires, and towards the end I really thought in one corner or two I would put it in the wall.
“Obviously not a great day for the team.”
George Russell moved through the carnage to an unlikely podium finish for Mercedes, having stopped early, on lap 12, to undercut Max Verstappen for the place he lost to the Dutchman off the line.
“Definitely surprised,” Russell admitted. “We’ve got to be realistic still. We should’ve finished fifth today. That was the true result.
“I don’t want to get carried away with this podium today. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Norris completed an excellent recovery from 15th on the grid to fourth culminating in a lap-49 overtake on title rival Verstappen. The Briton started on the hard tire and ran long, to lap 37, before switching to mediums on which he reeled in Verstappen by more than a second a lap to take the place and take three points out of the Dutchman’s lead, putting him 59 points adrift.
Verstappen, who complained of a lack of grip and dodgy brakes throughout the race, finished fifth ahead of Fernando Alonso.
Williams teammates Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto both had excellent races to finish seventh and eighth, scoring 10 points to move past Alpine for eighth in the constructors standings.
Lewis Hamilton slogged from pit lane to ninth after an overnight engine change, and Haas stand-in Oliver Bearman scored the final point of the race for 10th, becoming the first driver to score points for two different teams in his first two races, having stood in for Sainz at Ferrari in Saudi Arabia earlier in the year.
McLaren will back Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri in an attempt to win the drivers’ championship, but Norris says he wouldn’t be proud to take the title with excessive help. Piastri beat Norris to second place in the Italian Grand Prix after …
McLaren will back Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri in an attempt to win the drivers’ championship, but Norris says he wouldn’t be proud to take the title with excessive help.
Piastri beat Norris to second place in the Italian Grand Prix after overtaking his teammate — who had started on pole position — on the opening lap. The result limited the amount of points Norris took out of Max Verstappen’s championship lead, and prompted a discussion at McLaren of how it would approach future races with Red Bull struggling. Team boss Zak Brown has now acknowledged that Norris will get the team’s backing.
“Max is a pretty awesome racing driver,” Brown told the Dale Jr. Podcast. “We’ll let the debate continue between Kyle [Larson] and Max! So we’ve got eight races to go, plus three Sprints — which is the equivalent of nine races. He’s 60+ points behind — it’s a pretty tall order. There’s only three drivers that have come from this far back at this time of the year to do it, but we’re going to give it everything we’ve got.
“Oscar’s going to do everything he can to help. I’m fortunate that I’ve got two number 1 drivers, they’re both awesome, but Lando’s now in a position where he can mathematically see it, smell it, so we’re going to work as a team to see what we can do to help Lando and we’re going to kind of do it a race at a time.
“If in two races we’ve closed the gap, we’ll keep working as a team. If in a couple of races Max has won a couple, Lando’s got a DNF and it’s kind of mathematically out, then we’ll go back to ‘let them go.’ Because we let them go in Monza, that didn’t work out great for us as a team — we entered Turn 4 first and second, we came out first and third, and that’s not what you want as a team in the constructors.’”
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While Norris says he’s grateful for the public statement of support for his title bid, he is willing to lose out on the championship in Abu Dhabi due to some races where Piastri beat him, because it’s a sign of his teammate doing a better job.
“I’m sure it will hurt [to lose a close title fight] but I’m also here to race, and if a driver’s doing better than me and outperforming it’s because they’re doing a better job,” Norris said. “So I wouldn’t want to take that away from someone. And I also wouldn’t want to be given a championship.
“Yes, it would be great to have a championship, and short term you feel amazing, but I don’t think you’d be proud of that in the long run. And that’s not something I want. That’s not how I want to win a championship. I want to win it by fighting against Max, by beating Max, beating my competitors, and proving that I’m the best on track, and that’s how I want to win.”
Norris also says Piastri’s role is not to hand him positions in every circumstance, and he doesn’t expect the Australian to give up a victory even if the pair are running one-two.
“We’ve had decisions before, and we’ve had things that we’ve run to, we’ve just not publicly said it, so it’s more that we just told you what you want to hear finally than anything else! But we’ve always worked well as a team,” Norris said. “I think now there’s a bit more of a structure to it and an understanding that we have internally on what positions will change, for what scenarios will change, how we can help one another, and obviously how he [Piastri] can help me.
“But it’s definitely not where he goes out every session now and that’s his only job. If he goes out and he’s better than me and performs better than me or outqualifies me and he wins a race, that’s because he’s done a better job. Simple as that.”
Lando Norris says Oscar Piastri is helping him in his title challenge despite being overtaken by his teammate and finishing behind him in the Italian Grand Prix. McLaren started on the front row in Monza with Norris on pole position and Piastri …
Lando Norris says Oscar Piastri is helping him in his title challenge despite being overtaken by his teammate and finishing behind him in the Italian Grand Prix.
McLaren started on the front row in Monza with Norris on pole position and Piastri second, but an excellent move from the Australian around the outside into the second chicane saw him take the lead on the opening lap. Piastri then led the majority of the race before Charles Leclerc pulled off a one-stop strategy to win ahead of the two McLarens, with Norris finishing third and taking six points out of championship leader Max Verstappen.
“I have help,” Norris said. “Yeah, [Piastri] helps me! But I’m not here just to beg for someone to let me past. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to race. He drove a better race than me. I finished third and that’s where I deserved to finish.
“It’s the same answer every single weekend: I’ll do the best I can. The more points I gain, the better, but still got eight races to go.”
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Despite having no complaints about Piastri’s overtaking move or the fact McLaren did not impose team orders to switch the drivers late in the race, Norris admits the overall outcome of the race is frustrating after starting from pole position.
“Pretty disappointing, which is obvious from the outside, even,” he said. “Charles drove a great race, honestly. Hard to know if we could have done what he did today, but they deserved it. Both Oscar and Charles drove a good race. So, disappointing, starting from pole and only third when I think the pace was very strong. A shame but that’s what it is.”
Norris also feels there was little McLaren could have done to cover Leclerc’s strategy as it committed early to a two-stop that eventually left both drivers unable to catch the Ferrari in the closing laps.
“We tried [a one-stop], we knew it was the quicker thing to do, but I think we just killed the tires a little bit too easily,” he said. “When you’re in third, it’s a much easier position to just try and risk and do such a thing. I don’t think we can be too disappointed. I think it was a lot riskier for us to try and do it than it was for Charles.
“He made it work, so hats off to them and Ferrari, and himself because the driving part makes a big difference out there. We thought of it, and we wanted to do it, but we couldn’t today. It was clear yesterday we had a good qualifying car, but today our race car was probably quite good enough.”
Lando Norris led Oscar Piastri in a McLaren front-row lockout after a super-tight qualifying session for the Italian Grand Prix that saw the top six cars split by just 0.186s. Red Bull wasn’t part of that leading pack, however, with championship …
Lando Norris led Oscar Piastri in a McLaren front-row lockout after a super-tight qualifying session for the Italian Grand Prix that saw the top six cars split by just 0.186s.
Red Bull wasn’t part of that leading pack, however, with championship leader Max Verstappen way off the pace in seventh as the team’s midseason struggles continue.
In a boon to his slim but growing championship hopes, Norris set two laps fast enough for pole position, with McLaren a clear step ahead of the rest despite the relatively small margins.
Piastri threatened him for top spot, having been just 0.035s behind after the first runs of Q3, but the challenge never materialized, with the Australian failing to improve with his second attempt despite benefitting from a slipstream. It allowed Norris to extend his advantage to 0.109s in the final reckoning, putting him at the front of McLaren’s second front-row lockout in the last four grands prix and earning him the first back-to-back poles of his career.
“Amazing,” he said. “To have first and second when the field has been as tight as it has been all weekend is a little bit of a surprise, but a nice one. Well done to the team, they did an amazing job. I’m very, very happy.”
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Piastri was disappointed to botch his final qualifying lap, delivering him his eighth straight qualifying defeat to Norris.
“The first lap in Q3 was quite good, just the second wasn’t quite enough, which I feel like I’ve said a few too many times this year,” he said. “Still, a good performance and a really good team effort.
“It’s obviously a long run down to Turn 1, so starting second here isn’t always the worst thing.”
George Russell was a late improver for Mercedes to take third, lapping what he described as a pleasantly surprising 0.113s off pole.
“It was great,” he said. “A little bit better than I expected, because it was a really tough session.
“In the end not too far behind the McLarens. They’re so fast at the moment. We’re working so hard to catch them up. I’m super happy with third.”
Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were closely matched in fourth and fifth, keeping them in the frame for victory on Sunday, while Lewis Hamilton completed the tight top six.
Verstappen slumped to his worst qualifying result of the year, being forced to accept seventh with a car that struggled to master the few corners around Monza’s high-speed layout. The Dutchman was a whopping 0.695s off the pace, closer to the midfield than the pole contenders, and beat teammate Sergio Perez by just 0.04s.
Alex Albon put his upgraded Williams through its paces to qualify ninth on the grid for his second consecutive Q3 appearance, while an on-form Nico Hulkenberg qualified 10th for Haas.
Fernando Alonso qualified 11th, missing out on the top 10 by 0.01s
Daniel Ricciardo was RB’s best qualified, putting his car 12th for the Faenza team’s home grand prix.
Kevin Magnussen’s scrappy qualifying sessions — including a wide moment through the gravel at Parabolica in Q1 — culminated in a an underwhelming 13th, well behind high-flying teammate Hulkenberg. Alpine duo Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon will line up 14th and 15th.
Yuki Tsunoda was knocked out 16th after being pipped for a spot in Q2 by teammate Ricciardo by just 0.044s, leaving RB with a question mark over the effectiveness of the upgrade package being run by only the Japanese driver this weekend.
Lance Stroll executed his equal worst qualifying performance of the season in 17th, matching his same result from the Austrian Grand Prix.
Debutant Franco Colapinto had been in with a Q2 chance until he exited the second Lesmo wide and skidded along the stones. He saved his car but not his session, leaving him 18th.
Sauber teammates Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu will make up the back row of the grid, the Finn 0.344s ahead of the Chinese driver.
Oscar Piastri believes his qualifying result cost him victory at the Belgian Grand Prix after recovering from fifth on the grid to eventually be classified second. George Russell originally led home a Mercedes 1-2 ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but …
Oscar Piastri believes his qualifying result cost him victory at the Belgian Grand Prix after recovering from fifth on the grid to eventually be classified second.
George Russell originally led home a Mercedes 1-2 ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but Russell was later disqualified for having an underweight car, with excessive tire wear on a one-stop strategy understood to be a potential factor. Speaking before Russell’s penalty was announced and having crossed the line 1.1s behind the winner in third, Piastri says it was a good recovery from a tough qualifying spot.
“I’m pretty happy on the whole,” Piastri said. “I think it was a really well executed race. Clearly the one-stop was a possibility and I think there’s [probably] a lot of people out there kicking themselves that they didn’t consider it more.
“But no, I think we executed a great race, had a quick car and ultimately just didn’t put it in the right position in qualifying yesterday. I think, given where we started, very happy. Ultimately I think there was a bit more potential this weekend.
“It did cross my mind [to one-stop], but not seriously enough. I was amazed at how much difference the dirty air made today. I think when Lewis and Charles [Leclerc] pitted for the second stop, I think I went like 1s faster just because I had clean air.
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“That was impressive, but then it felt like it kind of degged a little bit again after that point. With 16 laps, I think it was, or 15 laps around Spa, it felt like a pretty big risk to try and go to the end.
“I knew that even with the tire advantage that we were building up, that we had a strong chance to try and win the race anyway that way. So maybe we should have considered the one-stop a little bit more. With the two-stop, I think we did a good job of capitalizing on it. Just unfortunately, on my side, didn’t give us the track position in qualifying.”
Piastri had a slow final pit stop when he overshot his pit box slightly and the McLaren pit crew had to readjust, but he believes that was the only error in what he rates as one of his best race performances overall.
“I would say so — I’m not sure my front jack man agrees!” he said. “But no, I think it was a really strong race. I think to try and get past Charles was not easy, and I think if I didn’t manage to do it on that lap, I probably would have been stuck there for a long time. That was a pretty pivotal moment of the race.
“The pace was very strong, so I felt very, very good this weekend. Even on Friday, the pace looked really strong. Just kicking myself a little bit that I didn’t get qualifying right, but I think it was a very strong weekend and probably one of my one of my better races.”
