MIAMI, Florida — When Oscar Piastri lost out to teammate Lando Norris in the F1 Sprint race earlier today at the Miami Grand Prix, the driver deadpanned that he “won’t be buying any lottery tickets at this place.”
Oscar Piastri knows exactly where things went wrong in qualifying at the Miami GP
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri pointed to a lack of driver execution for his P4 result in qualiyfing
Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
That lack of luck continued into the afternoon.
After posting the third-fastest lap in Q1 and then topping the timing sheets in Q2, Piastri settled for P4 in qualifying for Sunday’s main event.
Speaking with the media, including SB Nation, after qualifying Piasti knew exactly where it went wrong, and who to blame.
“Yeah, I mean this afternoon was nothing to do with luck. It’s just not the level of execution I needed to have in Q3,” began Piastri. “It’s never, never a great qualifying session when your best lap is in the first lap of Q2, so, there was quite a bit left on the table.
“Just a few mistakes on both laps in Q3, which is a shame.”
Piastri pointed at Turn 1 — which saw him vault into the lead in the F1 Sprint race earlier in the day in a battle with rookie Kimi Antonelli — as where it went wrong for him in Q3.
“Both laps in Q3 I struggled in [Turn] 1.
“I think I lost pretty much two-tenths in Turn 1, and then my first lap in Q3 I kind of gained it back a bit through the rest of sector one and then fell away in the middle.
“The last one I eventually recovered some of it at the end, but it wasn’t enough, so it was it was nothing to do with preparation.
“It was just, execution of the driving, unfortunately.”
The McLaren driver noted that the MCL39 had enough pace this weekend to clinch pole position for both the F1 Sprint race and the Grand Prix, but both he and Lando Norris missed out on pole in both qualifying sessions.
Piastri stated that driving the MCL39 “right on the limit” remains an issue.
“You know, there’s definitely still some things with our car that we want to try and address and driving it right on the limit is one of them.
“I think this weekend it has had enough pace to be on pole. It’s just that I’ve not done as good a job as I should have, unfortunately.
“I think it’s always been tight, the gap’s always been close, and potentially our advantage has been a little bit more on Sundays,” continued Piastri. “But I think our picture of where we stand has always been that if we make mistakes we’re going to be beaten, and that’s true.”
Still, even with how Friday and Saturday have played out here in Miami, Piastri remains confident heading into Sunday. Even if finding some clean air and fighting to the front could be difficult.
“You know, qualifying is still going to make a massive difference for tomorrow, so it’s not going to be easy to make progress.
“But I’m confident.”
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