Oscar Piastri revealed that securing pole position for tomorrow’s Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix was far more closely run than the timesheets suggest.

Piastri surged to his fourth pole of the season during qualifying to head his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by two-tenths of a second.

Oscar Piastri pushed too hard, too soon, on qualifying lap

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

While it marks the largest pole margin of the season, the Australian admitted his blistering pace was almost his undoing on his final flying lap.

Second as he begun his final run in the three-part qualifying hour, Piastri improved to a 1:11.546 lap with data revealing much of the advantage was made in Turn 7.

Speaking immediately after the session, the championship leader was pleased with how the lap started, but conceded he perhaps took too much out of the tyre in the process.

“Sector 1 in particular felt quite strong and halfway through Sector 2. The back end of the lap was a little bit trickier, and I’d actually lost a little bit of time,” Piastri said.

“Here, if you use up your tyres in the first half of the lap, the second half becomes very tough.

“Clearly, it was good enough, which is a great thing, obviously.”

Piastri added that he put little thought into metering out the tyre life across the lap as he attacked the opening sector.

“I knew I had some corners to tidy up in the first half of the lap, which I felt like I did a good job of,” he explained.

“And then, I don’t know, maybe I just got too excited for the second half of the lap or, I don’t know, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Maybe it was just a lack of talent in the second half, but I think when you push the tyres like that and get everything out of them, there probably is a bit of a price to pay because the last sector, the corners are so slow and so long.

“So, if I was to do it again, maybe I’d tweak it slightly, but I don’t really care now.”

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This weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix threatened to upset McLaren’s early-season dominance as a new technical directive comes into force.

That sees tougher load and deflection tests for the front wings with some suggesting it could prove a ‘game changer’.

However, practice revealed little impact and both McLaren and Piastri were able to quickly find their feet, culminating in his Saturday afternoon performance.

“It had been a good run through practice,” he observed.

“FP2 felt strong… FP3 I felt pretty strong. So, I was pretty confident that [pole] was on the cards in quali.

“I obviously knew that Lando was going to be quick, but I also thought that the others would get in the mix as well.

“It was nice that we had a bit of a gap as a team. I always felt pretty confident that I could achieve this today, so glad that we pulled it off.”

While leading McLaren’s first one-two qualifying result at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya since 1998, Piastri is mindful heading into the race.

The run to Turn 1 is one of the longest of the season, while managing tyres throughout practice has proved far from straightforward.

“Trying to get a good start and keep the lead is a good idea probably,” Piastri said when asked about the key to success in the race.

“But there’s going to be some strategy involved tomorrow. The long runs yesterday were pretty painful for everyone, I think.

“It’s going to be a different race to a lot of the races we’ve had this year; hopefully a bit different to last weekend.

“It will be an interesting race still and it’s not as simple as take the lead at the start and cruise from there.

“It’s going to be a challenge to manage the tyres, timing your stops right. There’s going to be a lot going on.”

While Piastri starts from pole with McLaren team-mate Norris alongside him on the front row, Max Verstappen will line up third, with George Russell’s Mercedes rounding out the second row.

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