Lars Leeftink
Friday, October 6, 2023 8:17 PM – Last update: 8:25 PM
Behind a dominant Max Verstappen, who took pole position for the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Qatar with half a second lead on Saturday, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton turned out to be the fastest drivers. Oscar Piastri rose to P3 after Lando Norris dropped from P2 to P10 due to track limits, but Piastri was told during his interview that he had also lost his lap.
As a result, he dropped from P3 to P6 again. Afterwards, a surprised Piastri spoke to Naomi Schiff when he heard that his round would not count either. “This is fun, isn’t it? Not knowing who came third. Fantastic. We’ll try again tomorrow.” Before he received this news, he discussed his qualification. “Honestly: I wasn’t too happy with myself. It was a mediocre and messy last lap, so there was room for improvement. A podium would be fantastic. It’s a different experience than in Suzuka. We got to work straight away today and it was a smooth track. It was quite a learning curve, but we are doing our best. Tomorrow we have another qualifying for the sprint race and then we will try to do a little better.”
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Correct setup
Did McLaren find the right setup for Piastri, given that there was only one training session for the team to collect data? “I’m not sure. The setup at Spa allowed us to take P2 in the sprint race, so it wasn’t bad. We’ll see what we can do. I think the car is what it is and it felt pretty good. The circuit is difficult because of the slippery conditions, so it will be challenging on Saturday and Sunday.”
2023-10-06 18:23:21
#Piastri #hears #losing #due #track #limits #interview #Nice #isnt
