McLaren boss Andrea Stella has denied Oscar Piastri’s turnaround to steal pole position for Formula 1‘s Dutch Grand Prix was entirely down to a set-up breakthrough.
Piastri, who holds a nine-point lead in the championship, turned the tables on team-mate Lando Norris to grab pole at Zandvoort as McLaren locked out the front row.
Having dominated the weekend 12 months ago, Norris appeared to be living up to his billing as the driver to beat as he topped the times in all three practice sessions.
And while Piastri wound up ahead in Q1 come qualifying, Norris soon returned to the summit during the second session with a one-tenth advantage over his title rival.
However, Piastri delivered when it mattered to go 0.012 seconds faster than Norris on their opening Q3 runs, which was enough as neither improved on their last laps.
Explaining how Piastri seized the initiative when Norris had looked in control, Stella attributed the Australian’s progress to finding incremental gains over the weekend.
“In reality, even yesterday, when at times Oscar might have been a little distant from Lando, I think the distance was not large at all,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“We knew, the drivers knew, that what we were saying in our debriefs that the situation was very close between the two drivers,
and each of them had some corners in which there was a margin to improve.
“And like I’ve said several times, having two competitive drivers makes the whole team and the car look better because they can pick from one another.
“So I think what Oscar has done, likewise Lando has done, they have seen where there was the opportunity to go a little bit faster, adjust the driving input and, I would say that for both Oscar and Lando, this is the way in which both have found some performance more than some set-up adjustments.
“So it was more in the driving and in adapting to the wind rather than finding some relevant solutions with car set-up or car specification.”
READ MORE – How a ‘patient’ approach rewarded Oscar Piastri with narrow F1 Dutch GP pole position
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