Piastri Edges Out Norris For Barcelona Pole

Oscar Piastri will start tomorrow afternoon’s Spanish Grand Prix from pole position. Having been quickest in FP3, the Australian was also quickest in all three phases of qualifying, his best time being a 1’11”546. McLaren’s dominance so far this weekend is reinforced by the fact that Lando Norris, who was quickest in FP1, was second in 1’11”755. This is Piastri’s fourth pole, all of them obtained this year and it’s McLaren’s 170th, the tenth at this race.

Both drivers who will make up the second row set an identical time of 1’11”848, with Max Verstappen in the Red Bull claiming third place on the grid by virtue of the fact that he set the time twelve seconds before George Russell did it in the Mercedes.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented to Piastri by Marta Garcia. The Spanish driver was the first F1 Academy champion in 2023 and is currently competing in the Le Mans Cup with the Iron Dames team. In 2024, with that same team, she raced in European Formula Regional.

Yellow and red were the dominant tyre colours in FP3. There’s just a tiny streak of white down to the Aston Martin drivers as usual scrubbing-in a set of the Hards. Seven drivers, Leclerc, Antonelli, Russell, Ocon, Bearman, Sainz and Albon, only ran Softs, with Williams’ Thai driver just using one as he only did five laps. In qualifying, everyone went with the C3.

Oscar Piastri – P1

“I’m very happy with today. It’s been a good weekend so far. The car’s been mega today, and I feel like I’ve been able to put in some good laps. Thank you to the team for all the hard work. This was very different twelve months ago, so to have turned it around in the best way is a great result. We’ll make sure we try to get a good start tomorrow and bring home the points.”

Lando Norris – P2

“A decent result today. I think the pace is definitely there. We just didn’t get the most out of the car on a couple of corners, but it’s a good result for the team. A nice one-two, and a good place to start for tomorrow. We’ve got a lot of quick guys behind us, so we won’t count them out, but we’ve got the best car underneath us. We’ll do our best to bring home maximum points.”

Max Verstappen – P3

“In the end, P3 was a good result for us as our first run in Q3 was a bit difficult. I couldn’t find the same grip as I had before so, going into the final lap, getting our references were a bit difficult. The positive is that the car was a lot nicer to drive and in a decent window but we couldn’t really extract any more out of it and match the McLarens’ pace. We were just not fast enough out there: the gap to McLaren is quite big at the moment which will make things difficult to gain places tomorrow and we will just need to do our own race. Today, I didn’t expect to be any closer and we did a good job putting it in P3. We will try our best tomorrow and see what we can do with the car and hopefully we can target a podium. It will be difficult but doesn’t mean we won’t try.”

Mario Isola – Pirelli Director of Motorsport

“The Barcelona-Catalunya track is always a severe test for car and tyre performance. Today we saw one team yet again monopolising the top two spots on the timesheets, but behind them, it’s very tight, and I expect the race will reflect that. It will be fascinating to see how the teams approach a race that always puts significant stress on the tyres. A two-stop strategy is almost obligatory, and I reckon the Medium and Soft compounds will see most of the action. We saw yesterday that the Hard tyre tends to slide too much and the lap times compared to those on the softer compounds reflect that.

“On paper, the Soft-Medium-Soft strategy is fastest, as was the case last year. Three drivers, Ferrari’s Leclerc and the Haas drivers Ocon and Bearman, have saved two sets of Mediums, clearly aiming to use them in the race. For those starting on Softs to make the most of the extra grip early on, with some drivers having new sets of the C3, the first stint should extend to at least lap 12. Then, based on simulations, they’ll aim to stretch the second stint to around lap 40, finishing with a final Soft stint. With a lighter car, that last set should be enough to get to lap 66. Drivers aiming for a more balanced race and planning to use the second set of Mediums will likely stop a few laps earlier. It’s also worth noting that undercuts are particularly powerful on this track.

“As for the performance of the C3 in qualifying, we saw its worth over a flying lap, as had already been evident in the three free practice sessions. The sudden seven degree drop in temperature in Q3, definitely saw the track get quicker, which paid off for those who had chosen to delay their last run as much as possible.”

FORMULA 2

Tyres played a key role in the Sprint Race. The Safety Car on lap 18 when the two PREMA Racing drivers, Gabriele Minì and Sebastian Montoya collided, opened the door for some drivers to switch from the Hard to the Soft. Ten did just that and the ones who made the most of it were Richard Verschoor (MP Motorsport) and Alexander Dunne (Rodin Motorsport). At the restart on lap 21, these two who were tenth and 11^th respectively at the time, started to charge through the field all the way to first and second places at the chequered flag, separated by just 380 thousandths of a second. Rafael Villagomez (Van Amersfoort Racing) also made the most of the Soft to claim his first podium in this category in third place.

FORMULA 3

A one-two finish for Van Amersfoot Racing in the Sprint Race, with Portugal’s Ivan Domingues taking his first F3 win ahead of Mexico’s Santiago Ramos. The third step on the podium went to Campos Racing’s Bulgarian driver, Nikola Tsolov.