Oscar Piastri states his qualifying performance in Silverstone is a “massive confidence boost” after making mistakes during previous Q3 appearances this year.
Piastri ended Saturday’s qualifying outing for the British Grand Prix in third place, securing his best result of his rookie season to date.
It marked Piastri’s fourth Q3 appearance of the year, however previous outings in the segment have been spoiled by on-track mistakes.
But on this occasion, he was able to make an error-free lap and qualify just over one-tenth of a second away from team-mate Lando Norris, who secured P2 on the starting grid.
“It is a massive confidence boost, but I think regardless of the end result I feel like I did a good lap,” Piastri said.
“I’ve made a few mistakes in Q3 through the year so it’s nice to have a solid lap on the board and to have it for P3 as well is even better.
“So, yeah, gaining more and more confidence every time I get out on track and more experienced, obviously.
“It’s just nice to be fighting for much higher positions now. There’s only two more spots left for today but I’ll try to keep pushing.
“There’s things I still need to work on and I think over one lap the pace this year has generally been pretty solid when I haven’t made any mistakes.
“The races, I still need to figure a few things out which will come with time. So that’s a big focus, but I’m very happy at the moment to be up here in P3.”
Piastri’s performance was also hailed by McLaren team boss Andrea Stella, who echoed the Austrialian’s comments regarding his error-free run.
“I think today’s result can be seen also as a confirmation of the exceptional job that Oscar has been doing that somehow today materialises in actually him being able to complete the lap,” Stella said.
“Because even in Barcelona was on par with Lando, up until the point where he put his wheels on a wet patch.
“So the speed was there, we knew he was there. And we’re really happy for Oscar himself that today, he could show what we knew already.
“In terms of his speed, the consistency, adaptability to the various conditions that we had today, and ultimately, when it comes to the decision in the past and, so you know, we look at the present, I think in terms of present, we have two strong drivers.
“This puts us in a strong position for the present, like I say, but above all for the future.”
