Piastri disheartened after Norris defeats him - Did the Briton learn a few tricks?

17:21, 26 Jul

Updated: 17:22, 26 Jul

byKada Sarkozi

After a dominant performance in Sprint Qualifying, Oscar Piastri did not manage to claim pole position for Sunday's Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. The Australian was not happy with his result.

Piastri just missed out on pole position, as he finished marginally behind his teammate Lando Norris.

"A bit disappointing. The second lap was coming together really well, and I just made a little mistake into (turn) 14 and lost a lot of time," he began.

Norris was provisionally on pole position after his first run, and he failed to improve on his second attempt.

"Disappointed," Piastri continued. "I felt like the car was very good again, but it’s fine margins out there. It’s obviously not a bad place to be starting but there was more in it, which is always disappointing."

The McLaren driver however was not surprised by how Norris managed to improve compared to Sprint Qualifying. When asked whether the Briton learned from him, he said: "I don’t know. We’re a good teammate pairing and we learn a lot from each other, every weekend."

"That’s what makes us such a good team, but it also makes it difficult when you’re trying to fight each other. I felt like I did an ok job today but just didn’t quite execute when it mattered. A bit of a shame."

What does Piastri expect from the Grand Prix?

Piastri started today's Sprint from pole position, however, after he was overtaken on Lap 1 by Max Verstappen, he could not re-take the lead and finished in second place.

Looking ahead to the Grand Prix, he said: "After the Sprint, I was aiming for P2. I don’t know what the weather’s going to hold tomorrow, I think it’s going to be quite different. We’ll wait and see what we get, but we’ll try to have a good race."