McLaren boss Andrea Stella has revealed that floor damage hampered Oscar Piastri‘s bid to beat Max Verstappen to pole position at the Formula 1 British Grand Prix.
Piastri appeared destined to take top spot at Silverstone when McLaren team-mate Lando Norris and the Ferrari duo were unable to surpass his provisional pole time.
However, Verstappen delivered an outstanding last-gasp lap in the Red Bull to go a tenth quicker to drop the championship leader to the second spot on the front row.
Piastri had been unable to improve on his original time on his second Q3 attempt as a moment on the kerb exiting Vale contributed to him winding up one-tenth short.
But on a weekend when McLaren hasn’t held a clear advantage, the Australian recalled that he was aware that it would be an uphill task to unlock more on his last lap.
“I was happy with the first lap,” Piastri said. “The first time was mega, to be honest. I was trying to think of how I was going to go faster and I didn’t.
“So yeah, the last lap was a little bit messy, but it’s been tight all weekend. I think the first time was very good.
“I don’t know how much the track would have improved, but a little bit on the table, whatever it was, it wasn’t enough.
“The team’s done a great job. We’ve tried a lot of things this weekend, trying to get a bit more pace.
“The car’s felt mega all weekend, but there’s been a few points where we were scratching our heads as to why we’re not quicker.
“So yeah, the team doing a great job getting us back onto the form that we know. It’ll be an exciting race tomorrow.”
Did Piastri’s damage cost him Silverstone pole?
However, Stella divulged that Piastri sustained damage to his MCL39 earlier in proceedings that scuppered his attempts to guard against Verstappen’s improvement.
“I think Oscar had put together a very competitive first attempt in Q3,” Stella concurred to media including Motorsport Week.
“He himself, in the comments, said, like, I was catching my head as, where can I go faster?
“With the second attempt, so he did try hard in the second attempt, and he lost time because the lap was not coming together very well.
“At the same time, as you remind, the car was a little bit damaged, and there was a degradation of the aerodynamic performance.
“So, considering that Oscar possibly might have overpushed a little bit in a couple of places, but also the fact that the aerodynamic efficiency reduced because of the damage, I think for Oscar there was not much chance to improve in the second attempt.”
But with a mere 0.015 seconds separating his drivers, Stella reckons Piastri would have been powerless to overturn the margin that existed to Verstappen, regardless.
“Even the lap time that Lando puts together, which is very, very close to Oscar in the second attempt, I think improves pretty much the level that was achieved by our two drivers today, that was a little bit of a ceiling in terms of what the car was capable of today,” he continued.
“And both drivers ultimately were happy with their driving performance and quality.”
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