How Piastri struck back versus Norris to secure pole in F1 Spanish GP qualifying

There was just 0.011s between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris at the close of the first sector of their final runs in Q3. In visual terms, that’s barely an amoeba’s reach between them as the McLaren duo duelled for a much-coveted Spanish Grand Prix pole in Barcelona. 

That smallest of margins subsequently grew as Piastri’s lap developed, resulting in Norris facing arrears of 0.209s as the Australian built up the deficit with a final flourish of pace.

Norris had already thrown together a benchmark for Piastri amid the final runs of Q3 – although it was only very marginally better than his first effort. In fact, it was mainly Norris’ faster approach into Turn 1 that did much of the heavy lifting on his second tour; he was 0.2s up on his best out of the right-hander, although this was an advantage that ebbed away to an ultimate 0.064s improvement.

Having been 0.125s up on his previous best at the end of sector one, Norris actually lost time in the subsequent two splits. It wasn’t the sort of time loss that if reversed would have been good enough to beat Piastri, but it suggested that the Briton had rather hit the ceiling in what he could extract from the car.

Once Norris put his final effort up for scrutiny, Piastri set it immediately in his crosshairs.

Piastri garnered a 0.05s advantage before the braking zone; it wasn’t even as if Norris had opened the lap at a slower pace than his team-mate, and actually crossed the line to start his run 1kph faster (301kph to Piastri’s 300kph). But Norris’ top speed was much reduced versus Piastri; having started at identical engine rpm levels, he was consistently about 100rpm down when the speeds topped out. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella theorised that wind might have been a factor.

Norris reversed the arrears with his rapid run out of Turn 1 to swing the delta 0.05s in his favour, but this didn’t entirely last. Piastri got the stronger exit out of Turn 2, despite his lower minimum speed through the first turn, but all this did was bring the two almost level pegging at the first split – directly on the braking zone for the Turn 4 right-hander.

Piastri vs Norris – final Q3 lap

Photo by: Motorsport Network

Here, Norris lingered on the throttle just a few metres later, allowing him to carry a bit more speed through the tighter apex of the corner and mitigating his later pick-up as he gathered a slender 0.03-0.04s advantage and held it on the entry to Turn 5.

But this was, both literally and figurative, a turning point. Piastri was a bit more patient through the lap and started playing to the McLaren MCL39’s strengths in coming off the throttle slightly sooner, braking a smidgen earlier than Norris, but then had the back-end settled to boot the throttle out of the tight-left corner. 

By comparison, the Briton was more ponderous, subjecting his car to a minor lift off the throttle before winding on full power. This not only allowed Piastri to bound through Turn 6 with more speed, but his again-earlier throttle for the Turn 7/8 prelude to Campsa paired with less braking ensured he maintained the speed on the brief run uphill.

That said, although Piastri was earlier on the throttle out of Turn 8, Norris put the pedal flat to the floor sooner. This gave him marginally more speed in shaping his car up for Campsa, and his shorter-yet-greater lift for the high-speed right-hander offered him the chance to close the gap. Yet, this was such a minor margin – equating to about 0.025s in Norris’ favour.

Piastri vs Norris – final Q3 lap

Photo by: Motorsport Network

In any case, that good work was quickly undone as he arguably got off the throttle too early for Turn 10 – as such, he shed about 10kph ahead of the braking zone versus Piastri pushing his car right to the marker before throwing out the anchors.

This more than doubled the deficit from 0.14s to around 0.3s. Although Norris got on the gas earlier out of the left-hander and improved his delta through Turn 11, he seemed to wash out at the apex of Turn 1. Perhaps the plan from Norris was to sacrifice the entry speed and give himself more opportunity to boot the throttle out of the corner – which he did, and duly came close to tousling the gravel.

Although the exit bought him back a little bit of time after failing to hit his marks at Turn 10, it wasn’t enough to stop Piastri from entering the final two corners with a two-tenth advantage.

Norris took Turn 13 0.05s faster than Piastri could, but needed to lift more for the final corner as a result; Piastri only needed to blip off the throttle before – as they’d say in his part of the world – ‘giving it some jandal’ on the run to the finish.

The stronger exit out of Turn 14 ensured that Piastri could sweep across the line to shatter his team-mate’s provisional pole-lap – and the 0.2-plus second advantage at the line was impressive given the tightness of the field all weekend.