Piastri: Getting ‘more comfortable’ in McLaren F1 car led to Q3 charge

McLaren looked good in Saturday’s FP3 session after overnight changes, with Lando Norris seventh and Piastri backing him up in eighth.

Norris’ qualifying session was marred by a wall contact in Q1, but Piastri reached Q3 and secured a solid ninth place, which translates to eighth on the final grid for his second F1 start thanks to a penalty for Charles Leclerc.

“I think every time I jumped in the car I felt more and more comfortable,” said the Australian. “I think compared to Bahrain, I don’t think I did anything very different or changed anything.

“Everything was getting better and better, and no mistakes today. It’s still incredibly close. But I was on the right side of the pack this time, so I felt like I put everything together much better today. today. And that made a big difference.”

Piastri admitted he was careful to increase his speed on the tricky Jeddah street circuit, despite knowing this from his F2 days.

“I think the first practice laps on Friday, everything was going a bit faster than I remembered from F2,” he said when asked by Autosport if he had paced himself.

“So it took a bit of getting used to, obviously. I think more than anything, being more comfortable with the car has been beneficial. I feel like if you can put yourself comfortable with the car, so no matter what track you go to, it makes life easier.

“Even from Bahrain to here, I feel like I made a good step, and throughout this weekend and the night. I think this morning was a good session, and obviously qualifying went well too. So yeah, I just built.

“I think a bit of track knowledge maybe helps, but saying I did a lot more laps in Bahrain than here! So I don’t really think that was it, I think it’s just more and more comfortable with the car.”

Asked if the car’s one-lap pace was better than expected, he said: “I think our general pace just seems a bit stronger. I don’t think we really expected that. that a lap is better than our race pace, if anything Friday was almost the opposite to some degree.

“So we’ll see what we have on Sunday. But yeah, I think when we have high grip, when we take the fuel off, I think for everyone the car feels a bit better.”

“But for us it was good. I think what we did overnight really helped a lot. While it wasn’t groundbreaking, I think we were a lot more optimistic after P3 than we were last night at this point.

“So again, those small margins really, really make a difference. And Sunday is going to be a close race, I’m sure. A lot of other cars have different strengths for us. So we’ll see how that goes. cheek.”