Oscar Piastri’s increasingly underwhelming Formula 1 season has taken another bad turn in Madrid with a “pretty shocking” qualifying lap at the Spanish Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The Australian’s hugely disappointing seventh-place finish in qualifying on the new Madring street circuit came as teammate Lando Norris delivered a pole-grabbing lap hailed by McLaren’s team boss as a “masterpiece”.<\/p>\n
The world champion produced his dazzling lap in the sunshine seemingly from nowhere, clocking a 1 minute 31.82 seconds circuit to edge Mercedes’s championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011 of a second, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third and Ferrari’s \u200cLewis Hamilton fourth.<\/p>\n
But while a “shocked” Norris was hailing what he called “probably one of the best laps I’ve done”, it was back to the drawing board for Piastri, who was disappointed to finish in 1:32.294 \u2014 remarkably, nearly half a second behind his teammate.<\/p>\n
“The first lap wasn’t too bad but the second lap was pretty shocking. Disappointing,” said the 25-year-old, who could find it difficult to make much headway from seventh on Sunday on an unforgiving, tight circuit where, he admitted, overtaking “will be difficult”.<\/p>\n
He is keeping up a brave face, though, still talking up how he hopes to earn a victory somewhere this year to set himself up for a realistic crack at the title in 2027.<\/p>\n
Piastri has not won a race since the Dutch Grand Prix now over a year ago when he was leading the 2025 championship, but he is adamant his dramatic fall-off was not a factor in his disappointing 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n
“Of course, I would love to win a race \u200cor two this year, \u200cor more if I can. But for me, honestly, the biggest thing, the end goal is to \u200btry and win championships,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And if I can’t do that this year, then I want to make sure I’m as best prepared as I can for next year.”<\/p>\n
For the moment, though, that still seems a long way off as his smooth driving style just doesn’t seem to be suited to the vast changes to the 2026 F1 cars.<\/p>\n