When the Formula 1 grid arrived in Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix there was every expectation that a McLaren would be on pole position.
That is indeed the case as Oscar Piastri stormed to the front to secure the first Grand Prix pole position of his young career, ahead of George Russell and teammate Lando Norris.
Piastri attributed his pole position to a decision to just “send it” into the hairpin at Turn 14, delivering what he called the “hairpin of his life” over the team radio:
Piastri spoke about his two push laps in Q3 during the FIA Press Conference.
“Yeah, my first lap was honestly better than my second lap, but just at the hairpin at the end of the straight I lost a bit of time and didn’t do the best hairpin,” described Piastri. “And then the second lap I was about two-tenths down on myself, so I kind of just went, why not send it into the hairpin, and I gained those two-tenths back and then found a little bit more in the last corner.
“So yeah, honestly, without that, I was tempted to box before that. So I’m pretty happy now that I didn’t, but it was—I just did a good corner, that’s all.”
Russell will start alongside Piastri on the front row, with Norris right behind his McLaren teammate in P3. Max Verstappen will start fourth, while the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc round out the top six.
Piastri’s effort also set a new track record, with the young Australian driver nipping the previous record which was set by Hamilton earlier this week at the resurfaced circuit in Shanghai.
That new surface has been a major flashpoint during the Chinese Grand Prix, with the increased grip leading to higher levels of tire degradation. Piastri hopes that by running up front in clean air, he can avoid tire wear that plagued some of the other teams in the F1 Sprint race earlier in the day. Hamilton won that race starting from pole, running away from the field in the clean air, and Piastri hopes to duplicate that effort on Sunday in Shanghai.
“I think just making sure your tires survive is the biggest thing,” said Piastri after qualifying. “I think we saw this morning that those that could—or I would say look after their tires, but that wasn’t even really true—the people that could manage the best one way or another were the quickest. “And I think for my own Sprint I felt like I did a reasonable job, it was just difficult trying to get past Max.
“But I think we saw with Lewis being out in front all morning, it probably helped him in the long run,” added Piastri. “So yeah, I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting race. It’s the most deg we’ve probably seen and the most graining we’ve seen in a long time. So it’ll be interesting to see if it stays the same tomorrow.”
