Oscar Piastri admitted the time lost in a single corner saw him bumped out in Qualifying 1 for tomorrow’s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.
Piastri missed progressing through to the second phase of the three-part encounter by 0.067s, logging the 16th best time.
“Not quite the session I wanted obviously,” the Melburnian said when asked by Speedcafe.
“We’ve said the whole season how incredibly tight it is, especially with the teams around us that we’re fighting at the moment.
“I went and had a look and it really was one corner where I lost all my time.”
Practice in Melbourne was interrupted on Friday with teams losing the GPS signal and rain interrupting the second of three practices.
It meant all drivers headed into Free Practice 3 without much of the high-fuel running they’d have usually completed.
The extension to that is teams do not have all the data they usually would.
“I don’t think anyone really got enough long runs in to be honest,” Piastri said when Speedcafe asked about his long run pace.
“I think our pace was, was reasonable. I think nothing different, good or bad, compared to the last two races. We’ll see.
“Melbourne keeps trying to rain as it does so who knows – it might be to our advantage if it rains tomorrow, but I don’t think it will.
“Obviously. FP2 is probably the main one where a lot of long-running gets done and we didn’t really get that yesterday.
“It’ll be difficult for everyone but I think we’re in a similar place to where we have been.”
Piastri’s view is shared by team-mate Lando Norris.
“I’ve not done as much as what I would I would like,” he said of his long-run pace.
“Yeah, I think just a little bit throughout the weekend, for different reasons, some chosen and some not chosen.
“But I’ve just not got quite the clean weekend of FP1, FP2, FP3 laps in that I would have liked.
“From a quali perspective as well, not doing a soft [tyre run] in FP3 before qualifying also hurts a touch.
“So maybe a little bit on the back foot but I don’t think anything that should hurt us.
“I think we’ll do our homework tonight we go through what we have.
“I still did some consecutive laps and things in FP3 and a couple FP1,” he added.
“So we got a decent amount of information, maybe not as much as a perfect weekend, but I wouldn’t say anyone’s got a perfect amount.
“We’ll just make the best of what we got.”
Norris will start the race 13th, his best in qualifying a 1:18.119s.
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