Oscar Piastri admitted he did not feel at one with his McLaren car in qualifying for the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, having ended up a disappointing sixth.
The Australian’s Saturday started in woeful fashion, having been punted by Nico Hulkenberg on Lap 1 of the Sprint Race, which sent him into team-mate Lando Norris.
Qualifying was an underwhelming affair for the title leader, as he could only manage a spot on the third row of the grid, with Norris second and Max Verstappen on pole
Despite McLaren’s hope the MCL39 would have muscles to flex in hotter weather, it was undeniably, one way or the other, a tough day at the office for the Woking-based squad.
For Piastri, he quite simply felt unable to extract the most from the package on the tricky Circuit of the Americas.
“I think, today, just getting in the rhythm with the car” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“It’s a track that is tough and you need a lot of confidence on, and there’s a lot of corners to make you pay for it if you don’t have that feeling.
“I feel like yesterday there was a few kind of relatively clear opportunities to try and find.
“But today, it felt like my laps were, maybe not the best laps of my life, but, you know, in line with laps I’ve done before, just unfortunate lap times.”
Piastri blames lack of COTA confidence for poor grid slot
Despite the incident during the Sprint Race on Lap 1 that caused the McLaren team-mates to collide and ultimately end their race, Piastri claimed that the repairs done to the car had no effect on his qualifying performance.
“Ah, no, I don’t think so,” he said. “The car was back in one piece and, as far as I’m aware, set up how we intended.
“It all felt normal, just the kind of behavior that we’ve had a couple of times through the season came out to play again today.”
During the Sprint Qualifying session on Friday, Piastri appeared to acknowledge some time lost in the slow corners but ultimately blamed his lack of confidence at the track.
“I haven’t seen yet, but, I think it’s just a little bit in a lot of places, really,” he explained.
“When you don’t have the confidence in the car around a place like this with so many corners, you can lose a lot of time in a little bit of time in a lot of corners. That’s what I felt like.
Looking ahead to race day, Piastri hopes to have a good start and take advantage of the amount of opportunities on track.
“Try and have a good start and, um, and see how many places we can make it through. That’s the best thing I can try and do,” he concluded.
READ MORE – Max Verstappen explains why he missed final run en route to F1 US GP pole
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