Oscar Piastri has suggested the Japanese GP will be an “open” encounter as McLaren targets a breakthrough podium for the young Australian.
Piastri will line up alongside Max Verstappen on the front row with team-mate Lando Norris one spot back in third.
McLaren has shown positive signs throughout the weekend in Suzuka with upgrades debuted in Singapore bolstering its performance.
Starting towards the front of the grid, its best chance of victory comes at the start by gaining the lead and using strategy to maintain it.
“Certainly, if we could put one car ahead of Max, we could try and see if there’s anything we can do,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella said.
“On outright pace, I think Max has the potential to open a gap and have his own race.
“So ideally, we could take the lead, but I think for us the most important thing tomorrow is, firstly, Oscar hasn’t finished on the podium yet, so that will be a fantastic result if we could achieve it, and we want to score as many points as possible.
“So definitely while we want to be trying to grasp the lead, at the same time we need to be cautious and make sure that we are in a good position for scoring at the end of the race.”
With Verstappen expected to run away with the race from the front, managing tyre wear through a stint to defend from the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes will be the job at hand for Piastri and Norris.
Charles Leclerc will line up fourth in the leading Ferrari, with Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz on the third row, ahead of a Mercedes lock-out in seventh and eighth.
While Perez has not shown the outright pace of Verstappen in Suzuka, the Red Bull is gentle on its tyres and will therefore likely be a factor at some point.
“Yesterday and the whole weekend, just the degradation has been a lot higher than say Silverstone,” Piastri explained when asked by Speedcafe who his race we with.
“Just looking at the tire choices for everybody, clearly I would say most people are expecting more than one pit stop just from the number of… I mean, Max saved three sets of softs, and the rest, so he’s doing a four-stopper!
“It’s just going to be a very different race to Silverstone from that aspect.
“Whenever you’ve got more deg or pitstops, it just increases the margin for error, it tests how well you can manage the tyres as well, so it’s not as simple as just kind of flat out or as quick as the car will let you.”
McLaren is set to keep a close eye on Mercedes as, while its cars start a little further back, the W14 has proved to have good long run pace on Friday and is typically kinder to its tyres.
“We have made some progress in terms of degradation,” Stella noted of his team’s hopes.
“Still, this level of degradation that we experience is, for instance, nowhere near as good as Red Bull.
“Every lap, you lose almost two-tenths with the soft tyres in terms of degradation per lap.
“Mercedes, they are also better than us in terms of degradation, so even if today they weren’t very good, or as good as I was expecting, they could be definitely in the game tomorrow.”
Piastri and Norris go into the Japanese GP in a good position strategically, with both boasting two new sets of hard tyres and a set of mediums.
They also both have three sets of used softs available, though that is not a preferred race tyre.
Mercedes has taken the same approach, while Ferrari has one new set of hards and two sets of medium rubber available for Leclerc and Sainz.
“We tried our best at Silverstone, so we’ll try and do the same thing but obviously it’s going to be difficult,” surmised Piastri.
“I think it’s going to be a very difficult race tomorrow as well, very different to Silverstone in that regard, it could be a lot more open I think.”
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