Oscar Piastri admitted he was a little surprised with his Dutch Grand Prix qualifying result, finishing just 0.142s behind teammate Lando Norris who took pole. He had topped Q1 and was only 0.013s off in Q2, but in Q3 he had to settle for fourth as George Russell and Kimi Antonelli split the McLaren pair.
Despite narrowly missing a front-row start, Piastri felt his performance was a big improvement over last weekend in Hungary. "A couple of places could have been a little bit better, but I feel like everyone says that after every qualifying lap. So overall I was pretty happy with it," he told Sky Sports F1. "A little bit surprised to not be a bit closer if I'm honest. But that's how it goes sometimes."
Piastri added that he felt more confident with the car all weekend. "I've been a lot happier with what the car's been doing and I just felt a lot more confident, even if the results haven't necessarily translated that," he said. Team principal Andrea Stella echoed his assessment. "In terms of Oscar, I think he's driving very well this weekend. We're talking about one, one and a half tenths in terms of gap. Oscar loses this time in a couple of corners, so he's actually very concentrated. And he is much happier with his performance and his interaction with the car than he was in Hungary," Stella explained.
A Disappointing Sprint
However, Piastri's qualifying performance contrasted with his sprint race result. He lost fourth place to Antonelli at the start and finished fifth. McLaren struggled with rear tyre degradation over the 24 laps, causing Norris to also lose second place to Charles Leclerc late in the sprint. "We didn't look great, especially in the second half of that sprint for both of us. A little bit surprising, because our one lap pace yesterday we thought with some slightly better laps for both of us, we could have been on the front row," Piastri said.
Stella conceded that McLaren's performance was better over a single lap than in longer runs. "We have to admit that our performance so far seems to be better over a single lap than in continuous laps. In sprint quali we were in condition to score the pole position. P1, P2 in Q2. But in the sprint race it was more difficult. We were losing performance because of rear tyre degradation," he revealed.
With this result, Piastri will start from fourth on the grid, while Norris leads the pack. The big question remains: can McLaren improve their race pace for Sunday's Grand Prix? Will they be able to challenge Mercedes and Ferrari who look strong? We'll have to wait and see.
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