Piastri produces fantastic lap to beat Norris for Spanish GP pole

Yahoo

2 days ago

Championship leader Oscar Piastri conjured up a special lap to beat McLaren team-mate Lando Norris on Saturday and take pole position for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix.
The Australian was a mere 0.017 seconds behind Norris after his first flying lap in Q3, but put up a better performance in his second attempt to clock 1 minute 11.546 seconds and claim his fourth pole of the season.
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Former F1 driver David Coulthard praised Piastri's performance, saying: "I think this is one of those moments where you go 'I remember where I was when I saw one of the best shootouts for pole position in some time'."
Piastri replied that his lap "wasn't perfect."
"But happy with what I put in. It has been a good weekend so far," he said.
Norris, who had benefited from a little tow from Piastri in the first lap, finished 0.209 behind his team-mate. The Red Bull of four-time defending champion Max Verstappen completed the top three, 0.302 off the pace.
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"Oscar drove very well. The pace was there, just a couple of mistakes and yeah, didn't do it," said Norris, who took pole in Spain last year but was beaten by Verstappen.
The Dutchman, however, thinks that it will be "tough to beat" McLaren this time in Sunday's race.
"We were lacking all weekend compared to them, but we executed well and that third position is where we should be. I'm here, squeezing everything out of the car," Verstappen said.
His performance was at least much better than the one of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, who will start the race in last.
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Following Norris' win in Monaco last weekend, Piastri retained his lead in the standings, but only three points ahead of his team-mate.
McLaren have dominated the season, with Piastri winning four and Norris two of the eight races so far. Verstappen is the only non-McLaren driver to claim victory at a grand prix this year, having won in Japan and Imola.
The Mercedes of George Russell qualified fourth, followed by the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli.
Charles Leclerc was seventh after a tyre strategy choice which Ferrari hope pays off in the race.
"We only had four new sets of softs for this qualifying session compared to others who had five, but we made that choice and I think we can put up a good fight starting from P7," he said.
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Pierre Gasly of Alpine was eighth and Isack Hadjar of Racing Bulls was ninth.
Home favourite Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin was 10th quickest as he was cheered by the Spanish crowd. But compatriot Carlos Sainz was only 18th with the Williams.