Piastri left stranded as ‘risky’ McLaren gamble backfires
Oscar Piastri will start from 13th on the grid for the Mexico City Grand Prix after a strategic gamble by McLaren backfired, leaving the Australian struggling with a lack of rear grip and eliminating him in Q2.
In contrast, his teammate Lando Norris topped the timesheets during that same Q2 session and ultimately qualified sixth, setting him up for a strong performance in Monday’s (AEDT) race.
Oscar Piastri will start in thirteenth for the Mexico City Grand Prix. Fernando Llano
Lewis Hamilton secured his first pole position for Ferrari in Mexico with a time of 1:16.514, marking his 105th career pole and his first since Hungary 2023.
His former Mercedes teammate George Russell thwarted a Ferrari front-row lockout by snatching the second-fastest lap, leaving Charles Leclerc third.
Piastri's qualifying unravelled in the dying moments of the second session. McLaren sent him out on a fresh set of soft tyres, but after running wide and having a lap time deleted, he was left with just enough time for a single flying lap.
Bleeding lap time and complaining of zero rear grip, he failed to advance to the final top ten.
“I felt like in Q1, we had plenty of pace and I felt like it was possible,” he said.
“The new tyres, I mean barely improved, so that was the biggest issue. In normal circumstances, we should have been plenty comfortable enough and I don’t know what changed on that new set of tyres, but I just had no grip at all.
“It’s gonna be tricky. It’s tough to overtake around here, especially in this generation of cars. Everyone’s kind of stuck in this speed limiter on the straight because of the rules. It’s gonna be a bit bizarre, but we’ll wait and see.”
Sky Sports analyst Bernie Collins questioned the team’s approach to Piastri’s run.
“Oscar actually says he doesn’t really know what happened. But what a risk McLaren have taken there,” Collins said on Sky Sports.
“They had five sets of soft tires. It seems everyone else going into this session, the majority of other runners, ran a new set of softs first, see how that lap time was, then decide on the second run. That’s the common thing to do for the top 10.
“But what they’ve done is they’ve run a used (tyre) first, wasn’t a good enough lap time, then forced (Piastri) onto the new. Okay, they allowed enough time to do two fast laps in there. But because Piastri had that wide moment in the first, he only had one lap to do it and couldn’t do it.”
Collins revealed that the strategy of hoarding fresh tyres cost McLaren and Piastri crucial track position.
“So what they’ve done is saved a set of softs, probably to start the race on a new set of softs,” she continued.
“However, they’re not in the top 10. So they’ve lots of new softs available, but the first thing you need to do is go through.”
Oscar Piastri was only 10th fastest on the opening day of practice in Mexico City. Getty Images
Commentator David Croft agreed, placing the result in the context of Piastri’s track record at Mexico.
“(Piastri) started 17th two years ago; he started 7th on the other two occasions. That’s not a good day,” he said over the broadcast.
Meanwhile, just hours before qualifying began, Haas caused a stir in the paddock by announcing Ryo Hirakawa would replace Esteban Ocon, making the 32-year-old the second-oldest debutant in F1 history.
With the team confirming Ocon’s absence was not illness-related, the door is now slightly ajar for another Australian - Jack Doohan - to step in for next week’s Brazil Grand Prix, as Hirakawa has prior racing commitments and is unavailable.
