{"id":148423,"date":"2025-06-01T03:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148423\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T03:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:16:09","slug":"oscar-piastri-admits-there-was-a-price-to-pay-for-blistering-qualifying-lap-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148423\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri admits there was a ‘price to pay’ for blistering qualifying lap in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri revealed that securing pole position for tomorrow\u2019s Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix was far more closely run than the timesheets suggest.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Piastri surged to his fourth pole of the season during qualifying to head his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by two-tenths of a second.<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri pushed too hard, too soon, on qualifying lap<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

While it marks the largest pole margin of the season, the Australian admitted his blistering pace was almost his undoing on his final flying lap.<\/p>\n

Second as he begun his final run in the three-part qualifying hour, Piastri improved to a 1:11.546 lap with data revealing much of the advantage was made in Turn 7.<\/p>\n

Speaking immediately after the session, the championship leader was pleased with how the lap started, but conceded he perhaps took too much out of the tyre in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cSector 1 in particular felt quite strong and halfway through Sector 2. The back end of the lap was a little bit trickier, and I\u2019d actually lost a little bit of time,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, if you use up your tyres in the first half of the lap, the second half becomes very tough.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, it was good enough, which is a great thing, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri added that he put little thought into metering out the tyre life across the lap as he attacked the opening sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I had some corners to tidy up in the first half of the lap, which I felt like I did a good job of,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, I don\u2019t know, maybe I just got too excited for the second half of the lap or, I don\u2019t know, it wouldn\u2019t be the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it was just a lack of talent in the second half, but I think when you push the tyres like that and get everything out of them, there probably is a bit of a price to pay because the last sector, the corners are so slow and so long.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if I was to do it again, maybe I\u2019d tweak it slightly, but I don\u2019t really care now.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on the Spanish Grand Prix wing updates:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Explaining F1\u2019s phantom updates and why McLaren do have a new front wing after all<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Mercedes focus their efforts elsewhere, as there\u2019s no new front wing on the menu<\/a><\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Spanish Grand Prix threatened to upset McLaren\u2019s early-season dominance as a new technical directive comes into force.<\/p>\n

That sees tougher load and deflection tests for the front wings with some suggesting it could prove a \u2018game changer\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, practice revealed little impact and both McLaren and Piastri were able to quickly find their feet, culminating in his Saturday afternoon performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had been a good run through practice,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFP2 felt strong\u2026 FP3 I felt pretty strong. So, I was pretty confident that [pole] was on the cards in quali.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously knew that Lando was going to be quick, but I also thought that the others would get in the mix as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was nice that we had a bit of a gap as a team. I always felt pretty confident that I could achieve this today, so glad that we pulled it off.\u201d<\/p>\n

While leading McLaren\u2019s first one-two qualifying result at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya since 1998, Piastri is mindful heading into the race.<\/p>\n

The run to Turn 1 is one of the longest of the season, while managing tyres throughout practice has proved far from straightforward.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to get a good start and keep the lead is a good idea probably,\u201d Piastri said when asked about the key to success in the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s going to be some strategy involved tomorrow. The long runs yesterday were pretty painful for everyone, I think.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a different race to a lot of the races we\u2019ve had this year; hopefully a bit different to last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be an interesting race still and it\u2019s not as simple as take the lead at the start and cruise from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a challenge to manage the tyres, timing your stops right. There\u2019s going to be a lot going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Piastri starts from pole with McLaren team-mate Norris alongside him on the front row, Max Verstappen will line up third, with George Russell\u2019s Mercedes rounding out the second row.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0\u2018Unlucky\u2019 Lando Norris reveals plan behind \u2018cheeky\u2019 Spanish GP qualifying move<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri revealed that securing pole position for tomorrow\u2019s Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix was far more closely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[225,1710,12,1712,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-148423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-home-page","9":"tag-mclaren","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-oscar-piastri","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114605941419254062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}