Piastri: I’m happy with the result, even though I hit the wall

McLaren drivers believe qualifying in Jeddah went well and it is unlikely that it would have been possible to finish above the third row.

Oscar Piastri (5th): “To be honest, this was about the most that could be achieved today. Although, looking at the gap with the car in front of me, I can assume that the lap could probably be driven a little faster. But I still didn’t have enough to rise to higher positions.

But I’m quite happy with the result, even if the start of the weekend wasn’t ideal because I hit the wall a few times, including in the first part of qualifying. It wasn’t the most pleasant moment, but the car wasn’t damaged. In my opinion, at first I could not control the rear of the car, and then the front wheel hit the stop – I admit, at that moment I thought that qualifying was over for me.

But the behavior of the car, in my opinion, is already better than in Bahrain and has a more correct balance, even if we are still far behind the leaders. But overall the MCL38 grips the track better and the pace has become faster, although we have to continue working on the settings to make it even more comfortable to drive.

I believe tomorrow’s race will be a one-stop race. It will be interesting to see who will choose which tactic, but I think Red Bull and Ferrari are certainly faster than us, although we will see if we can stay ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin. I also expect that Mercedes will be able to achieve about the same pace as us…”

Lando Norris (6th): “I don’t know yet how tomorrow’s race will go, because on this circuit it is generally difficult to overtake, but it is also not easy to follow closely an opponent. The degradation of rubber takes place less violently here and to stay ahead of an opponent the speed difference must be quite large. At the same time, we are not that fast on the straights.

Overall, we will have to solve difficult problems tomorrow, although we start from a good position and today’s qualifying went well. It seemed to me that I completed a quite successful lap at the end of the last session, although our tactics were a compromise as in the third part of qualifying I only had one set of fresh tyres. But we consciously went for it…

The plan for tomorrow’s race is to try to stay ahead of the Mercedes, although that won’t be easy due to the fact that we lack speed on the straights. But let’s hope…”