Piastri says his car is “very good” despite error which put him out in Q1 · RaceFans

After being eliminated from the first phase of qualifying for the first time in 2024, Oscar Piastri says it all came down to an error in turn 12.

The McLaren driver was knocked out in 17th, almost two tenths of a second away from safety. It was the first qualifying session all season that Piastri failed to reach Q3.

Piastri had started the session like team mate Lando Norris on the medium compound before switching to soft tyres after his first run. With fresh soft tyres, he ran wide at turn 12 on his first push lap, losing seven tenths and having his time deleted for exceeding track limits. His final effort was not good enough to secure passage into Q2.

“The medium, I just didn’t have much confidence on,” he explained after the session. “The first soft lap I was doing was very positive, and then I just went wide at turn 12. It was as simple as that.

“Then we tried to go again, but I just had zero grip because the tyres were too hot. So, disappointing.”

Norris went on to take third on the grid, while Piastri will start 14 places lower on the grid. Last year in Mexico, Norris rose from the same position to finish fifth in the grand prix. Piastri is taking heart from that heading into Sunday.

“I think the car is very good,” he said. “It’s just a shame that we have to start from the back tomorrow. We’ll try and see what we can do. Ironically it was a similar position for Lando last year and he still had a good race. So there’s still opportunities.”

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McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri will be expected to try and emulate Norris’s recovery drive here last year from his starting position.

“Certainly the car today was performing well,” Stella told the official F1 channel. “It was in condition, as we saw with Lando, to compete for the first couple of rows on the grid.

“With Oscar, one lap was deleted – which is a shame – and then in the other one, the tyre had overheated and he couldn’t pull together a competitive enough lap. So something to look into. Certainly we could have done better than that. Ferrari, Verstappen, they were quick today, but we could have had the two cars up at the front of the grid. So something we’ll look at and review.

“At the same time, last year with Lando, we were pretty much in the same position and we managed to do a great race, recover many positions and definitely that’s the mission for Oscar tomorrow.”