McLaren impressed with Piastri’s qualifying debut despite error and Q1 exit · RaceFans

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella described Oscar Piastri‘s qualifying debut as “impressive” despite his elimination in the first round.

Piastri will start his first grand prix from 18th place after dropping out in Q1. He was almost half a second slower than team mate Lando Norris, who was the last driver to take a place in Q2.

The 21-year-old admitted “it wasn’t the greatest of qualifying sessions” in his first competitive appearance since winning the Formula 2 championship in 2021. “I just made too many mistakes,” Piastri told media including RaceFans.

“The first set of tyres, with the red flag, maybe we could have done something different because the first run was not great on a set of colder tyres. But I think regardless of that, the second run I made too many mistakes.”

Norris went on to qualify 11th. However Piastri saw some signs of encouragement in how his performance compared to his team mate.

“Looking on the positives, the corners where there were no mistakes were more competitive. But everyone is so tight now that any little mistake, let alone some of the big ones that I had, cost you a lot.

“So I think a lot more to come from myself. I think where Lando qualified today I think is probably about where we are and as we saw it’s an incredibly tight.”

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Stella said he was pleased with Piastri’s performance as there was only one point on the lap where he lost a significant amount of time to Norris. “It was impressive because the snap he had in corner two was huge, he lost two to three tenths there, but otherwise it was not too far off Lando, which is obviously a very strong reference in Formula 1.”

Piastri’s result doesn’t reflect how well he has performed on his first race weekend with the team, said Stella.

“I’m impressed with the speed, but I’m also impressed with the approach. He has gone really step by step, staying always very calm, very aware of his points of strength and to some extent limitations associated with being a rookie.

“So it’s just a shame that this is not reflected in the classification. But actually I think Oscar has done very well so far.”