Oscar Piastri confessed that his latest qualifying slump at this weekend’s Formula 1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix is something he found “quite weird,” after labouring to fourth place on the grid.
The Australian has once again done little to escape from the shadow of team-mate Lando Norris at the Interlagos circuit, the Brit taking pole for the Sprint, winning it and taking pole for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Piastri could only muster fourth place in qualifying, lining up behind Charles Leclerc and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, placing him on the dirty side of the grid.
The disappointing result underlines a continuing shift in the swing in form from Piastri to Norris, who now leads the Drivers’ Championship by nine points after his win in the Sprint, in which Piastri retired on Lap 6.
After qualifying, Piastri explained to media including Motorsport Week how he initially had to re-adapt after his Sprint crash and refocus for qualifying, and revealed the ominous feeling of no improvement from Q1 to Q3 from his car.
“I went through it all and assessed what happened,” he said. “Once I was comfortable with what had happened, then you just go back into qualifying mode.
“It’s very different to a Sprint race or a normal race. Just trying to focus on that.
“The qualifying session itself wasn’t easy. A bit of a bizarre session and weekend with the Soft tyre just not working for some reason.
“To have pretty much zero lap time improvement through Q1, Q2 and Q3 is quite weird. It feels like things are not flowing that easily at the moment.
“I had pretty good confidence in the car yesterday. Today it felt like it was a bit trickier for everybody and I just struggled to get the most out of the car.”
Piastri hopeful of overtakes but cautious on tyre choices for Brazil GP
When asked what he can do to keep himself in the fight on race day, Piastri stated it was as simple of getting ahead of the cars in front.
“Just try and pass a few cars,” he said. “That’s all I can try and do. Just try and capitalise on any opportunities that come up and see what happens.”
Overtaking was at a premium during the Sprint Race for all drivers, which instils fear of an uncharacteristically boring race at Interlagos on Sunday.
When this was put to Piastri, he stated he was keeping an open mind on that, but mentioned the anomaly of the tyre choices, observing how the Soft compound had appeared to be a wrong option, with Norris struggling with them despite his victory.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “It did look relatively tough in the Sprint but also it was quite wet offline which made things tough.
“I think there’s also a bit of a question on what tyres to use because the Soft has not looked great.
“It’s not been good in qualifying and it’s not looked great in the Sprint either. I think there’s a bit of a question mark on that too. Maybe that will give me some opportunities.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris storms to F1 Brazil GP pole, Max Verstappen out in Q1
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