Oscar Piastri believes his love for Spa Francochamp played a role in getting him comfortable faster in the qualifying rounds for the Sprint before the Belgian Grand Prix.
McLaren chose a higher downforce setting to improve performance in corners passing through the central sector, but slightly lower top speeds in the first and last sectors. This was the approach he worked 0.6 seconds before the sprint qualifying display, 0.6 seconds ahead of his teammate Rand Norris.
• Sprint Qualifying Report: Piastri Blitzes Field Again
“It was a good rap,” Piastri said. “It’s a bit scary with SQ2 with lap deletion (as it exceeds the track limit on Raidillon). But the car is mega all day long and I feel like I was able to put a lot of good laps in it.
“It’s one of my favorites of the year. I don’t know, it could have given me a tenth of the extra! But it’s always fun around here. It’s a joy to handle today’s cars and today’s time.
“The car is in a good window on lap 1 and it’s a truck I always come and enjoy. I don’t know why, but I think I was confident. I feel that the last few weeks were good from a pace perspective, but not from a result perspective, so it’s good to get results.”
The margins were large in the final lap times, but Red Bull took the opposite approach to McLaren, with Verstappen becoming particularly fast in sectors 1 and 3. As a result, the piastry becomes vulnerable to attacks at the start of Saturday.
“I need to go. Red Bull was actually very fast on a straight line. I don’t know if it’s the same in qualifying for the sprint, but it makes life difficult and the spa is probably the worst track with pole position.