Oscar Piastri has reflected on narrowly missing out on pole position after a thrilling qualifying session at the Saudi Arabian GP.
As the floodlights lit up the Corniche Circuit, Oscar Piastri looked set for pole position. But Max Verstappen’s near-perfect lap saw the coveted top spot disappear in the dying seconds. The Australian will share the front row with the reigning champion, in a Red Bull that has shown an impressive turn of speed after a disaster in Bahrain.
Despite the disappointment of losing pole position in Jeddah, speaking in the post qualifying press conference, Piastri said he extracted the maximum from his MCL39 during qualifying.
“At the time, I felt like it was a good lap, yes. I made a bit of a mistake on the first lap and managed to get through that corner much better on the second attempt. And, when you need one hundredth, you can think of a few places.
“But, no, honestly, it was a good lap that I was happy with. Max did a very good job today, and that was pretty much all we had.”
No regrets for Oscar Piastri after interrupted Q3 in Jeddah
When asked if the red flag caused by team-mate Lando Norris’s dramatic crash affected him, Piastri maintained he had no regrets.
“It was alright for me. I was the only one with a lap on the board. I knew that lap probably wasn’t going to be enough anyway. So I knew that I would have to go back out and improve. But it’s a little bit nicer when you have a lap already on the board.
” But again, when you know you have to go out there and do a better job, then it kind of renders that one somewhat useless. I also saw that Max was a thousandth faster before I went back out, so I knew that I had to improve to get back on pole. It was a good lap. No regrets, really.”
Despite losing pole position, Oscar Piastri said he felt confident he could pass Verstappen during the Saudi Arabian GP, but was wary of the Red Bull’s pace.
“I’ll see how I feel. I think we’ve got good pace. I think the Red Bull and Max look more competitive here than they did certainly last week.
“Suzuka is not a completely different layout to somewhere like here with a lot of high-speed corners, so it kind of makes sense to me at least that they’re a bit more competitive, and we’ll see if that translates to the race tomorrow. I’m feeling confident in what we’ve got.
“There’s a lot of DRS zones around here, which is a nice difference to Suzuka. So, yeah, let’s see if we can make some progress.”
