“More out there”: Piastri after unlucky qualifying in Las Vegas

Written by Maham Mir

Oscar Piastri during qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix | Credit: Formula One

After an unlucky qualifying session with mixed conditions, Oscar Piastri will start Saturday’s Las Vegas Grand Prix in P5. During the hour-long session, which had no disruptions unlike FP2, teams were forced to make decisions about when to move from wet to intermediate tyres.

Speaking to the media after the session ended, Piastri stated that the session “didn’t go quite how I wanted” given his less than ideal starting position. The Australian driver also alluded to operational issues in the car that he was dealing with ahead of the final part of qualifying. 

During his Q3 run, Piastri was hampered by yellow flags as Charles Leclerc took to the run-off area which forced the Australian driver to lift off. Additionally, his final lap saw him going too deep at Turn 12 and emerging side by side with Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bulls. Both incidents saw his lap time affected and unable to improve.

With teammate, and championship leader, Lando Norris putting the car on pole, Piastri confirmed that “we’ve got a good car” that is capable of “working in all kinds of conditions”. The confirmation for the car's ability to work in all conditions must be a positive sign for Piastri as Saturday's weather report is currently depicting more mixed conditions like the qualifying session.  

Across the weekend as a whole, Piastri demonstrated decent pace even if his running was disrupted, particularly in FP3 due to red flags and a loss of telemetry. In the final practice session, Piastri and Norris finished P19 and P20 respectively.  

With this P5, starting behind Norris, Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and George Russell, Piastri has his fourth consecutive race starting outside the top three. His last pole position was at the Dutch Grand Prix where he extended his championship lead to 34 points.

Looking ahead to Saturday’s Grand Prix, Piastri will be hoping to make his way to the podium where he has not been since the Italian Grand Prix in September. With Verstappen close on his heels in the championship standings and the gap to Norris steadily increasing, Piastri has it all to do in the race.