P3 in Azerbaijan Qualifying a 'surprise' for Piastri and McLaren

Oscar Piastri says starting from P3 in Saturday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix is a "big surprise" after both McLaren cars had appeared to lack pace during practice.

Early in Q3, however, Piastri and team mate Lando Norris put in times that saw them provisionally lock out the front row, with the Australian's best time of 1m 43.364s ultimately just one thousandth of a second off Charles Leclerc in P2.

Before Qualifying, the McLaren pair were not really being mentioned in the hunt for pole, having only placed as high as sixth in practice.

But come Friday afternoon in Baku, something seemed to click. While they couldn't hold on to the front row – Norris had a lock up on his final run which saw him finish fifth fastest – Piastri only missed out by the narrowest of margins.

“It’s not the first time that’s happened to us this year,” explained Piastri. “We seem like we’re a bit on the back foot through practice, we come out in Qualifying and, yeah, we just find that bit extra.

“I was pretty surprised to see us 1-2 after the first lap of Q3, but unfortunately, we had no hope against George [Russell]. So, happy with how the weekend’s gone so far.”

From P3, Piastri will surely start the Grand Prix with the hope of a podium finish, but has mixed fortunes at the circuit. In 2024 he won after defending from Leclerc for more than 30 laps but, a year later, he crashed in Qualifying and in the race – significantly denting his title hopes.

The 25-year-old is staying cautiously optimistic about his chances this time out though. “Difficult to know,” he said when asked about his chances. “I think, honestly, our race pace [on Thursday] almost looked better than our one-lap pace. So from that side of things I was pretty happy, but we’ll have to wait and see.

“Obviously, it’s always a bit of chaos around here, so we’ll see what we get.”

Meanwhile, Norris cut a disappointed figure with his fifth-fastest time – compounded by the lock up on his final attempt – saying afterwards: “I was already up I think a little bit on the first two corners. I mean, when we’re so far off, I’m going to try and push to get a… I don’t think P1 was possible today, because George did an amazing job, but I’d rather try and push for P1 and P2 but make a mistake than settle for a P5, or a P3, or a P4.

“It’s the way it is sometimes. Obviously we’re a long way off, but still there or thereabouts.”

“I’ve been driving very well this weekend,” added the reigning World Champion. “It’s just some problems that we have with the car that just limits my lap time a little bit. Hopefully we can fix them.

“We’re probably not going to fix them tomorrow, which means we’re in for a tough race. We’ve got some things we need to fix on the car, because I’m just at a deficit to the other car at the minute.”