Piastri calls his Q3 lap 'pretty crap' as Norris steals pole in Madrid

Oscar Piastri labelled his Spanish Grand Prix qualifying effort ‘pretty crap’ after ending up seventh at the Madring circuit in Madrid on Saturday, as McLaren team-mate Lando Norris surged to pole position with a seven-tenth gain on his final Q3 lap.

Piastri had struggled for pace throughout the weekend at the new Madrid venue, failing to break into the top six in any practice session or qualifying segment — with the sole exception of FP3. The gap to Norris was 0.360 seconds in Q1 and 0.331s in Q2, and although Piastri closed to within 0.017s of his team-mate on his first Q3 run, his second attempt yielded only a 0.248s improvement.

“That was really just one of those sessions where you should hit the reset button and have another go,” Piastri said. “Rather than struggling with anything massively, it was just quite messy. The first lap of Q1, I had to abort, and you just get yourself a bit out of sequence and out of the rhythm of it. On a track like this, it’s very easy to lose a lot of time.”

He was equally blunt about his final flying lap. “My last lap in Q3, I’m not surprised it’s that far off. It was pretty… crap. That’s how it goes sometimes, unfortunately.”

Norris, by contrast, produced a dominant final effort despite McLaren acknowledging he lost around three tenths in the final corner — making his overall gain all the more remarkable.

When asked whether he had believed pole was within reach at any stage, Piastri was candid. “Probably not. I think if you did a good job, it felt like it could get higher than where we’d kind of been sitting. But to be on pole was clearly an impressive job.”

Piastri did offer a measured note of encouragement, comparing the weekend to his experience at Monza. “I think it’s been a bit of a better weekend, like Monza, in that I at least am happier with what the car’s doing. And today was simply just one of those sessions.”

The qualifying result extends a difficult run for the Australian against his team-mate. Piastri has now been outqualified by Norris 13 times in 15 sessions since the April break — sprints included — with an average deficit of 0.123 seconds.