The Miami GP sure had an interesting but disappointing start for both the McLarens, that came here with new upgrades.
Lando Norris has the full package, while Oscar Piastri is running with half of it and will have to wait for the Imola weekend to have it.
The cars showed good pace during the Sprint Shootout but this wasn’t enough to ensure a good result.
“The upgrades are working, so I’m happy with everything. Just not with one thing”, says Norris.
The English driver put on a great performance during most of the qualifying session, but it kinda went away during SQ3.
“I just pushed too hard, simple as that. No car was feeling very good. Just silly to be honest”, he states. “A couple of mistakes in Turn 1 and just a big spiral from there. A shame because the team has done a good job.”
His teammate had a similar issue. Even with only half of the upgrades, Piastri showed good pace up until the last part of the session.
“I think it was just a really, really tricky session for everybody”, says the driver.
His doubts are all about tyres.
“I don’t know if the track changed a little bit or if we all just thought the soft was going to be a lot better, but my lap felt pretty terrible and it was P6”.
He continues: “Lando did the quickest lap of the whole qualifying on a medium in SQ2, so a bit strange.”
The hot weather is a key factor when it comes to tyre degradation, but Piastri is not worried about it and hopes for an interesting Sprint Race.
“It’s going to be tough for everybody, I think, but the tyres seem to be surviving okay”, he says. “They’re just very hot, so not too concerned, but I think it could be an exciting sprint. We’ve got a few cars out of position and I feel like nobody’s really had much consistency. It’ll be exciting tomorrow.”
[adrotate banner=”8″]
Get 10% off all official F1 Merch at TheRaceWorks.com using code ‘EF1‘ at checkout.