Oscar Piastri suggests his gains in Qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix were more to do with his confidence than underlying car performance.
Piastri qualified 11th for Sunday’s race, missing out on a berth in Qualifying 3 by just 0.018s to McLaren team-mate Lando Norris.
It marked a substantial uptick in performance from the Australian, whose 1:12.395s in the Saturday afternoon session was 1.3 seconds faster than he’d been at any point of the weekend prior.
“We changed a few things on the car,” Piastri said.
“We’ve been going back and forth a little bit through the weekend.
“Before Qualifying, there wasn’t seven-tenths in the car, so I think I made quite a big improvement.
“The car also gave me a bit more confidence in qualifying, probably pushed a little bit more as well – got to be close to the walls.
“I think just with driving style and stuff like that, especially around a track like Monaco, it’s taken me longer than I would have liked this weekend to get up to speed.”
Piastri has typically been a slower starter to a grand prix weekend, building his way into it without taking excessive risks or damaging the car.
It’s a mature approach that has earned him many admirers in the F1 paddock, especially within the team, which is happy with his gradual but steady progress, even if the 22-year-old himself is less patient.
“It was kind of almost a case of once I fixed one thing, the rest of it came more naturally as well,” Piastri said of his Monaco gains.
“But I think I just became more comfortable – a little bit from the car but I just started the qualifying session well, which I hadn’t in all the practice sessions.
“I’ve always sort of started the first lap on the back foot, trying to catch up, and think [I] started qualifying a bit better this time and then had a bit more confidence through the rest of the session.
“So made quite a big step which I was very happy about,” he added.
“I think for the future obviously I want to be on the pace earlier than the first run of qualifying – makes life a bit easier.”
The Monaco Grand Prix begins at 15:00 local time on Sunday (23:00 AEST).
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