Oscar Piastri has said his McLaren “felt really good all day” as he ended his Formula 1 slump with pole position for the Sprint Race at the Qatar Grand Prix.
Piastri ended a string of seven consecutive race weekends of failing to win or secure pole position for either Sprints or Grands Prix.
The Australian beat Mercedes’ George Russell and McLaren team-mate Lando Norris en route to setting a new lap record at the Lusail International Circuit.
“Yeah, it’s been a good day, which is nice for a change,” he expressed.
“It’s been, yeah, just a day where things have clicked from the start, and I think, yeah, the Sprint pole position went really well.”
That said, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the man who currently sits second in the Drivers’ standings – 24 points adrift of leader Norris.
On his final flying effort in SQ3, the Australian had to battle a hairy moment of opposite lock, almost losing his MCL39.
Despite this and leaving lap time on the table, Piastri took the entire session into perspective and insisted that he was happy with the job.
“Yeah, pretty big moment on my lap,” he recollected.
“So, yeah, thanks to the team, great car, and we’ve been, looked really good this weekend so far, so I’m pretty happy with that.
“I think if you hook it up, there’s a [one minute ] 19s in there, so we’ll see what we can do, but at the moment, I’m just happy with the result.”
Piastri keen to keep momentum going into Qatar GP
Starting from pole for the Sprint Race tomorrow, Piastri has given himself the best chance to drag the title fight to Abu Dhabi in a weeks’ time.
But Norris needs to outscore Piastri by either two points over the course of the weekend or win the main race on Sunday to wrap up his maiden title.
Therefore, Piastri is eager to keep this momentum going into the rest of the weekend to thwart the Briton’s advances, until the last round at least.
“Obviously, it’s only Sprint Pole and for a few points, but I’ll take whatever I can get,” he added.
“I mean, a Sprint weekend is always really tough to know if you’re, you know, fully on top of things from when you roll onto the track, but no, I think the cars felt really good all day.
“We made some good adjustments into qualifying, which was nice, and I think the pace was there all day. So, hopefully, we can keep that running.”
READ MORE – Oscar Piastri takes pole for F1 Qatar GP Sprint, Max Verstappen down in sixth
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