‘It’s bigger than what makes sense’ – Oscar Piastri bemused by Barcelona pace loss

A challenging weekend for McLaren racer Oscar Piastri at the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix has left the Australian scratching his head over where his pace went at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

As McLaren team mate Lando Norris was taking the plaudits for securing a second career pole position, before finishing the Grand Prix within two seconds of winner Max Verstappen, Piastri endured a more difficult time of it in Barcelona.

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A pair of errors in the final segment of qualifying saw Piastri start a season-worst P9. And although he was able to recover to seventh in the race, ahead of the Red Bull of Sergio Perez and within three seconds of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, Piastri was left to reflect on a tricky time of things in Spain.

“A bit of a difficult weekend obviously,” he said post-race.

“I think P7 was looking pretty realistic going into the race, obviously got close to Carlos at the end, but just didn’t quite have the pace this weekend in general, so need to understand why that was the case. Obviously when you qualify that far back it makes life very tough, so just need to understand why it’s been so difficult.”