Patience pays off for Piastri

Australia’s Oscar Piastri was thrilled to see his relentless fine-tuning amount to a hard-fought pole for tonight’s Dutch Grand Prix.

Despite McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris appearing to hold the edge throughout the weekend, Piastri rose when it mattered with pole on the line.

The Brighton boy saved his best for Q3, recording a record-breaking 1:08.662 to score a fifth career pole by the slender margin of 0.012s.

Having dominated the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix, Norris appeared on course to give himself the best shot of a repeat success, having topped every session aside from Q1.

But the Brit failed to improve in his final Q3 lap, ensuring Piastri secured his first pole in seven races since Barcelona.

Whilst Norris had led for much of the weekend, Piastri felt he was getting closer and closer with each lap and was delighted to see hard work pay off.

“It felt pretty good, but not perfect,” he said.

“But I think with the wind being so strong, there are some places that are never going feel perfect, so, it felt good and a good improvement from pretty much every other lap I did this weekend.

“I think the pace this weekend has been very strong. 

“FP3 seemed very, very strong and I knew that the car wasn’t the problem. 

“It was just that it was taking me a while to improve in some places.

“Just little tweaks here and there. It felt like this weekend took a lot of attempts to try and improve in some places and eventually it was just enough attempts.

“It was nice to be able to pull it out then. It took a lot of hard work, some patience in trying to find the time, and eventually I got there.”

During his quest to build up to the record-breaking lap, Piastri said factors such as the fluctuating wind directions at the coastal circuit, plus conditions, made things tricky.

It is his third trip to the demanding Zandvoort, but first where FP3 has not been impacted by wet weather and the Aussie also felt the extra dry running was pivotal.

“It’s changed a little bit through the weekend,” Piastri said. 

“Yesterday, I feel like I made progress in FP2, but then FP3 not so much. 

“Then the wind changed a little bit overnight, so, some of the corners where I was stronger yesterday became a bit weaker again, and it’s kind of moved around a little bit. 

“The middle sector’s not been my favourite this weekend, but I think eventually I got there. 

“Just putting it all together in the same lap was not that easy, so, I feel like I’ve improved generally from last year, but I think qualifying has gone much better. 

“Also this is kind of the first normal Saturday we’ve had in Zandvoort. 

“The last two years we raced here, it’s been a wet FP3 or a wet start of qualifying. 

“Today I was able to get more into a rhythm, and I think that helped as well.”

Last year, Zandvoort was the scene of arguably Norris’ most dominant win, taking a 22s win as Piastri could only manage fourth.

Looking ahead to the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix, Piastri feels tyres will be the key at a track that presents limited overtaking opportunities.

“The tyre strategies from everyone are a bit different,” he said. 

“I think us two are one of the only teams to have two Hards and a Medium. 

“I think pretty much everyone else has just one Hard and one Medium, so we’ve got that kind of up our sleeve, but it also kind of tells you a little bit of what most people are thinking.

“We’ll wait and see, but we’ve got some options available.”

Image: mcLaren

2025 Dutch Grand Prix schedule (AEST)

FP1: 1 L. Norris 1:10.278 2 O. Piastri +0.292 3 L. Stroll +0.501

FP2: 1 L. Norris 1:09.890 2 F. Alonso +0.087 3 O. Piastri +0.089

FP3: 1 l. Norris 1:08.972 2 O. Piastri +0.242s 3 G. Russell +0.886s

Qualifying: 1 O. Piastri 1:08.662 2 L. Norris +0.012 3 M. Verstappen +0.263

Sunday, August 31

Grand Prix – 23.00

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