McLaren were the quickest team during FP1, with Lando Norris placing first and Oscar Piastri third at the F1 Chinese GP. This momentum only carried on into the early sessions of Sprint Qualifying where they continued to top the charts.
However in SQ3, they ultimately missed out on pole. The team had made the decision to come out earlier and go through 2 flying laps on the soft. A risky decision that came with varying results. All the other big guns did one lap at the end.
Piastri on placing P3
Oscar Piastri will be starting P3 on the grid for the Sprint Race on Saturday at the Chinese Grand Prix.The Australian will be behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and polesitter Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. Piastri clocked in a timing of 1:30.929, making him a mere 0.08s slower than Hamilton.
The Australian spoke on the team’s SQ3 strategy of a push-cool-push and the car’s pace. Despite struggling in the later half of Sprint Qualifying, Piastri is confident he can fight for a win.
“I think we were probably quick at the wrong points of it, unfortunately. Yeah, SQ1 and SQ2 felt good.
“And then SQ3, we tried something a bit different and went out much earlier and tried two laps, which I’m not sure was the best thing in the end, but I think it’s something we need to have a look at.
“But yeah, I think the pace in the car is still very strong and I’m still confident to fight from third tomorrow.”
Improvements from last season
Piastri admitted that was struggling to pull pace out of the car, with factors such as tyre pressure and the wind playing a big factor, a problem many drivers reportedly faced in FP1. A positive however is the increase in grip from last year after resurfacing.
“Yeah, it’s been difficult I think with the track surface, it’s got a lot of grip but it’s very peaky and I think it’s been pretty tough all day to just keep on top of the car.
“I honestly think we did a good job of trying to tame it for sprint quali, just maybe got the run plan a bit wrong. It’s been an interesting challenge.
“The grip has been a lot better than last season, which is nice.”
The struggles of Lando Norris
His teammate Lando Norris on the other hand will be starting P6 on the grid after clocking in a timing of 1:31.393. The Briton wasn’t able to extract the pull potential out of the car during the first flying lap of SQ3 after a huge snap of oversteer in turn 13 cost him time there and on to the massively long back straight.
He then made a mistake during his final flying lap by locking up and going off at turn 14 which ultimately landed him in sixth.
Norris reflected on the session, confessing that he struggled with his front tyres locking and the wind being a disadvantage during the session.
“I think just throughout the day we’ve been struggling a bit with the front locking and struggling a lot in the last corner with all the tailwinds. So, kind of a lot more aligned with Bahrain, just a lot windier when the wind’s blowing, then we struggle a lot more.
“I think both myself and Oscar struggled more, clearly me more than him. So, yeah, just pushing a bit hard to try and make up for not quite being quick enough.”
Sprint Qualifying is only the second session we had the cars on track,so there is still ample time for the teams to improve their setups before the actual race on Sunday. When asked how he was feeling towards the rest of the weekend.
Personal improvements needed
Norris says that the problem this session was the driver and not the car, saying the car was “still good and in a good window, maybe not good enough for pole”.
“I mean, that’s more me rather than the car.
“I can’t make the car perfect, but no, this was me just trying to, again, like I said, just push a bit too much. So, more just need to back off a little bit and, yeah, not try to push too much.
“I think the car’s still good and in a good window, maybe not good enough for pole, but yeah, we can definitely go forward.
The comments from Andrea Stella
Team Principal, Andrea Stella also spoke on McLaren’s day, calling the results of Sprint Qualifying “disappointing”.
Just like the drivers, he admitted that the team had struggled in SQ3.
“Our first day back here in China ends with a somewhat disappointing result in Sprint Qualifying. During Free Practice we managed to work through our run plan well, completing a lot of important items as we head into this Sprint weekend.
“However, we struggled to put perfect laps together in SQ3 today, and thus we were not able to capitalise on the good pace of the car. This serves as a reminder of the competitive nature of this field, where not fully extracting performance can cost us several grid positions.
“We now have the chance to use the information available to maximise the pace in the car, ensuring we are prepared starting from the Sprint tomorrow.”
