Oscar Piastri has admitted that the seismic gap between himself and Lando Norris in qualifying for the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix is “a bit of a mystery”.
The Australian will start seventh at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Sunday, a continuation of some struggles with one-lap pace suffered in practice.
It was not a McLaren-wide issue, however, as team-mate Norris blitzed to pole position, almost sixth-tenths of a second ahead of Piastri’s time.
The gulf leaves Norris in a strong position to close the gap to Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship, with fellow title challenger Max Verstappen fifth.
After qualifying, Piastri admitted that he had no answer to why exactly his MCL39 could not extract the level of performance that Norris was able to.
“I mean, difficult to know, everything feels normal,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “But the gap was big in that session, it’s been big all weekend.
“And there’s been some things where I felt like I can tidy it up and make some easy progress, but not all of it. And I think in qualifying, I feel like I did a reasonable job and the car felt reasonable as well.
“So, yeah, the lack of lap time is a bit of a mystery.”
Piastri ‘frustrated’ after doing ‘a reasonable job’ in Mexico
Following FP2 on Friday, it was Piastri who was perhaps the slightly more positive of the two McLaren drivers, saying that, despite some underwhelming positions in final classification, he was feeling that the package was “reasonable”.
But with Norris going on to sort out the balance of his car over one lap, Piastri was left at odds with his, and further underlined the mystification of his lowly grid start.
“I think it was in a pretty good spot,” he explained. “I haven’t obviously seen the data, but I’m expecting it to be losing a little bit everywhere.
“You know, there wasn’t any big moments or corners where I felt I did something massively wrong. That’s been a bit of the story of the weekend.”
Piastri’s frustration was compounded by the level of confusion as to what his car was lacking compared to Norris, particularly as he felt that his own performance in the session was not of poor quality.
“I mean, ultimately, just a bit frustrated with how the session’s gone,” he confessed. “There’s a lot of things I could worry about, but ultimately, being that far off when you feel like you’ve done a reasonable job is a difficult place to be. And so, that’s my biggest concern at the moment.”
With the long run down to Turn 1 crucial, Piastri was asked whether he would feel that he may be in for a tough afternoon stuck in the dirty air of others, as he was in Austin.
“I’ll try my best,” he said. “It obviously is the longest run of the year, so I’ll try and make up some spots there, but I think if I can unlock the pace in the car, then we can have some fun.
“We’ve just got to try and unlock it.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris leaves F1 title rivals flailing with stunning Mexico GP pole
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