McLarenPiastri’s form heading into Sprint Qualifying was a little unknown, as he did not get a clean soft tyre lap in during practice after locking up heavily and flat spotting his tyres. He looked a match for his team mate at least, but in the end it was Norris who impressed the most in SQ3.
He grabbed third ahead of Piastri’s fourth, and admitted that he left lap time out there – but not enough to challenge for the front row. With the second half of their upgrade package bolted on, McLaren seem in a good place but could not quite replicate the form they showed in Miami last time out, a track both drivers admitted does tend to suit their car.
Lando Norris, 3rd, 1:13.280
“Given how the morning went, a P3 is a very good result and a bit of a turnaround. We were worried about being off the pace, and I didn’t have much confidence in the car, but we made some changes that delivered a clear step forward. We returned to the previous spec front wing going into Sprint Quali, which gave me some more confidence. The lap was decent, I could have found a bit more, but the gap to the front wasn’t that big, which is encouraging.
“I’m proud of the team for reacting quickly and doing such a good job under tricky conditions. The upgrade package is working well, some bits, mainly the front wing, still need more time, and we may reintroduce them further down the line. That said, the rest of the car worked well, and for the first time this weekend, I felt genuinely confident in Q3 on the Soft tyre. It’s a good step forward, and we’ll keep refining from here.”
Oscar Piastri, 4th, 1:13.299
“P4. I am relatively happy with that. We maximised what we could, especially after a messier FP1 with the delays and the Red Flags, which meant we didn’t get as much learning time as we had hoped. The Mercedes look strong with their new package, so we still have work to do to find more performance and close that gap.
“Thanks to the team for their work to get the new parts ready for Canada. It was a big package to deliver, and we have some more work to do on the front wing – we ended up running with the older one in Sprint Qualifying as we felt more comfortable with it.
“Let’s see what we can do in the Sprint tomorrow and see what we can optimise ahead of Grand Prix Qualifying.”
Neil Houldey, Technical Director – Applied Engineering
“We’re pleased to have come out of Sprint Qualifying with a third and fourth place. We’ve made great progress over the last few races, the upgrade in Miami had a big effect on closing the gap to the front, and the new parts we’ve brought here seem to have helped close it a little bit more again.
“With that said, we reverted to the old specification front wing after FP1 this morning. We found during the session that the front wing wasn’t quite delivering what we expected, and we ultimately took the call to run the previous specification front wing, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to unlock more performance.
“There’s still an opportunity to extract more performance out of the car for the main Qualifying session. Going forward, our focus remains on adding performance to the car, looking ahead to the next upgrades, and making sure we’re in a position where we are fighting for first and second, not just third and fourth. The goal is to close that gap completely.”