After the disappointing Q1 exit of Lando Norris during qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, McLaren’s hopes rested entirely on Oscar Piastri as he managed to advance into Q3. While he successfully pipped Carlos Sainz for the front row by 0.119 seconds, the pole position remained out of his reach by a significant margin of over three tenths. Regardless, the young Australian has all to play for starting from second on the grid as the MCL38 is expected to be quick tomorrow.
In the post-qualifying press conference, Piastri was asked to address the radio clip where he labelled his second lap of Q3 as his messiest one to date. He clarified, “Maybe not the messiest ever, but it certainly wasn’t the cleanest.”
Moreover, the 23-year-old revealed that he left nothing on the table, given his multiple close encounters with the wall. Despite missing out on pole position, Piastri confessed that he was quite content about securing a front row start.
“A few big moments in there and a couple of love taps with the wall. So, yeah, I mean, I pushed to get everything out of it that I could. And, yeah, maybe a little bit too much in some places, but I don’t think I had enough to get polled today, so… I’m pretty happy with the front row. And yeah, hopefully we can try and put up a fight tomorrow.”
On the topic of whether the lack of a second set of fresh softs in Q3 left him on the back foot, Piastri responded that his first run on used tyres had no significant impact on his momentum. He added that taking into account the massive track evolution, executing a clean lap played a bigger role than using a pristine set of softs when it came to setting the best lap time of the session.
“I don’t think that much in the end. I think the used tyres I did, I did more or less half a lap on it. So it wasn’t completely used. And around here, the tyres have been a little bit strange, I would say. And just with the track evolution, it’s more about doing a good lap rather than having the perfect set of tyres. So I was pretty happy with P3 after the first set. And then I found a little bit more on the second set of tyres. So yeah, I was pretty happy with that.”
With regard to the question of who boasts the faster car in Baku, Piastri estimated that multiple teams are closely matched in terms of race pace. In a very candid fashion, he remarked that he was surprised by the subpar performance of Red Bull over one lap this weekend. Additionally, he proclaimed that qualifying plays a more significant role than usual in determining the big points haul since the top four teams are rather competitive on Sundays.
“Probably whoever finishes in front tomorrow, I would say! I don’t know. I think it’s very, very even. Through all of practice it looked very tight between us, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull. To be honest, I was a bit surprised Red Bull weren’t a bit further up at the end of Q3, but I think our race pace looked good yesterday.
“But nowadays the top four teams are so close in race pace that qualifying often makes a massive difference. So I’ve got confidence that our car will be quick. But yeah, I think there’s definitely seven other cars out on the track that are certainly not any slower.”
When asked whether they can challenge the Maranello-based team for the win tomorrow, Piastri stated that despite his good starting position, a victory would be difficult to achieve if he is stuck behind dirty air. Nonetheless, he sounded confident that their race pace would be enough to keep up with the Ferraris.
“I think from where we’re starting, yes. But I think following around here is going to be really tough. We saw yesterday that it was pretty tough once you get behind someone. So hopefully I can get some clean air and that would be good. But yeah, we’ll see what we can do. I think our race pace is good. But again, the Ferrari is certainly not slow.”
