Oscar Piastri's increasingly underwhelming Formula One season has taken another turn for the worse in Madrid with a "pretty shocking" qualifying lap at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Doubtless making the Australian even more frustrated on Saturday was that his 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".
The world champion produced his dazzling lap in the sunshine from seemingly nowhere, clocking a 1min 31.82sec circuit to edge Mercedes' championship leader Kimi Antonelli by just 0.011sec, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen third and Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton fourth.
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 only finish in 1:32.294 -- remarkably, nearly half a second behind his teammate.
"The first lap wasn't too bad but the second lap was pretty shocking. Disappointing," sighed 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".
He's 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.
Piastri hasn't won a race since the Dutch Grand Prix now over a year ago when he was leading the 2025 championship, but he's adamant his subsequent dramatic fall off wasn't a factor in his disappointing 2026 campaign
"Of course, I would love to win a race or two this year, or more if I can. But for me, honestly, the biggest thing, the end goal is to try and win championships. 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," he explained.
For the moment, though, that still seems a long way off as his smooth driving style just doesn't seem to be suited by the vast changes to the 2026 F1 cars.
"It's all to do with technically driving the car. There's nothing to do with a hangover from last year ... it's very much a technical thing," he explained.
"It's not like I'm slow, feeling sorry for myself or thinking about last year. It's just that a few of the weekends I've had to drive the car in a different way that just hasn't really worked for me.
"The biggest thing this year has been the cars are very different to drive, both from a power unit point of view but also the car itself is fundamentally very different and the tyres also.
"You've got to drive it very differently and I would say it's not necessarily in the way that I would choose to drive a race car. So there's just been some struggles getting to grips with that."
Meanwhile, though, Norris does seem to be getting to grips with it, producing "one of those laps where everything pretty much worked perfectly."
The champion's 19th career pole and third of the season was hailed by McLaren team boss Andrea Stella as a "masterpiece" which could only have been bettered if he hadn't made a mistake at the very last corner that possibly cost him 0.3sec.
Norris had been only sixth after the first run in the third qualifying session but he diced daringly with the wall during the breathtaking final lap, and declared over the radio at the end: "Oh, what a lap, gorgeous ... oh, that might be my best one."
With Reuters
