Piastri praises McLaren’s “great” execution in “tough” Imola Quali

Oscar Piastri praised McLaren for doing “a great job of executing” a challenging Qualifying session, earning the #81 pole position for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix and giving him the best shot at a fourth straight win tonight.

For the third time in Piastri’s Formula 1 career, the Australian will take the five lights from the coveted front grid box, with his standout efforts in last night’s gruelling Qualifying session rewarding the #81 with Pole Position in Italy.

Where his championship rivals fell flat, the Australian picked up precious time, and despite traffic at the final corner of the lap, P1 was undeniably Piastri’s, who has finished in the top two of every session of the weekend thus far.

“Yeah, I mean, it was a great session — very tough session, with all the delays, the red flags, and then also the tyres,” Piastri said. 

“The tyres have been very, very tricky today. 

“I think after yesterday, everyone thought the C6 was not too bad, and then today it was a real mystery. 

“So, the team did a great job, got the car in a nice window. 

“We’ve been trying a few different things this weekend and we got into a nice place for qualifying, so the lap was good. 

“I had about four cars in the last corner, which didn’t help, but it was enough. 

“So very, very happy with the job well done, and yeah, I’m excited for tomorrow.”

Across the entire grid, Q1 was a difficult stage to navigate with two huge shunts causing significant delays to the session.

Piastri was one of ten drivers yet to record a lap when the first pause to the session arrived, instead having a front row seat to Yuki Tsunoda’s upside-down roll into the barriers before he retreated to the pitlane.

When the 18-minute session resumed, Piastri didn’t rush out on track.

He continued with a measured approach in Q1, joining the session on the debutant C6 tyre to set a time of 1:15.500s, slotting the Australian into second fastest behind Max Verstappen.

A second Red Flag brought the session to a close in the dying seconds of Q1, with Franco Colapinto ending his debut Qualifying session as an Alpine driver in the barriers, cancelling all last-ditch laps that were currently taking place.

As a result, the Australian’s initial time held strong in P2, and he was through to the second round. 

The championship leader secured the early Q2 benchmark with a time of 1:15.241s, collecting a purple middle sector as he crossed the line marginally ahead of Lando Norris — a strong showing for the teammates on a day when others fell flat.

Piastri shaved two-hundredths off his lap time before the session came to a close, allowing him to advance to the top ten shootout in P2, with his teammate breathing down his neck in P3.

Q3 was where Oscar Piastri says he “really found [his] groove”, pushing aside the drama of the first two sessions as he put his visor down to start the top ten shootout.

It was a strong start for the McLaren duo who traded fastest sectors across the 4.9km lap, however, it was Piastri who came out on top of the intra-team battle with a time of 1:14.821s.

The Australian returned to the pitlane, with tyre talk the main discussion heading into his final attempt.

Of the remaining ten cars, there was a mixed bag of C6 and C5 runners, with George Russell gaining attention as the last driver on track running the medium compound.

At the head of the field, however, was Piastri who was tasked with setting the pace while his competitors trailed behind.

The McLaren driver picked up the pace as he toured the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, recording a purple middle sector before his lap almost came undone at the final turn when he was held up by four cars.

He crossed the line with a time of 1:14.670s — a lap that neither Verstappen nor Norris could match on their respective messy runs through the old-school circuit.

“I wasn’t thrilled to be the first car on track, but I had quite a big gap in the run before anyway, so it wasn’t actually that much different for me,” the #81 said.

“Of course, you lose the slipstream going first, but you don’t have any disturbed air, you don’t have any dirty air. 

“I think that definitely helped me out a little bit, but yeah, that’s what we chose to do. 

“I think we’ve got enough pace to be able to do that and stick to our guns, and that’s what we did. 

“So the team did a great job of executing that one.”

Piastri will line up alongside Verstappen as the duo gets set to battle their way down the 553-metre run to the first braking zone, with that moment the most critical to ensure the Australian can hold onto the lead of the race at a circuit where overtaking opportunities are few and far between.

On the championship front, the Australian will relish in the fact that his teammate, who sits just 16 points behind him in the WDC, failed to make the top three thanks to Russell’s decision to run the medium tyre and will start the race from P4. 

“I think as long as I can get a good start, then [I’m] confident [I can win],” Piastri said. 

“You know, it’s a difficult track to overtake on — I think our pace has been strong, our long run pace yesterday looked very encouraging. 

“So yeah, as long as I can get a good start and have a good first lap, then that would be good.”

With Ferrari and Kimi Antonelli leaving the Italian crowd without much to celebrate, the crowd will be behind the McLaren driver who has coined the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix as “another home race”, with lights out taking place at 23:00 AEST.

Image: Formula 1

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