Piastri reacts to crushing Verstappen and Norris at Spa with 'amazing lap'

17:51, 25 Jul

Updated: 18:45, 25 Jul

byNorberto Mujica

Oscar Piastri did a 1:40.510s at Spa, which was 0.477s faster than Max Verstappen's effort, which was good enough to beat the other McLaren of Lando Norris, who trailed his teammate by a whopping 0.618s.

Speaking with F1TV after the Sprint Qualifying session, the Australian reacted to his blistering pace. "That was a good lap. A little scared in SQ2 with the lap deletion, but the car has been mega all day and I feel like I've been able to put in a lot of good laps," said Piastri referring to the P9 finishing position he was left in during SQ2 after his first push lap was deleted.

Spa is Piastri's favourite of the whole F1 calendar

"So, yeah, thanks to the team, the car has been great and this is a track I love. It's my favorite one of the year and I don't know, maybe that gave me a couple of extra tenths. But, no, it's always good fun around here. And when the car is handling as well as it is today, it's a pleasure."

But where did his Spa pace come from? After all it was a six-tenth gap to his teammate.

"I don't know. I mean the car has been in a good window from lap one. And again, it's a track I always enjoy coming to and-- I don't know why."

"But I think I've had good confidence. I feel like the last few weekends have been good from a pace perspective but not so much from a results perspective. So yeah, it's nice to get a result for that."

Verstappen's low downforce to threaten Piastri's rule at Spa?

Red Bull Racing opted for a lower downforce configuration at Spa, something that makes Piastri ponder on how the sprint race may go tomorrow.

"The Red Bulls were very quick in a straight line. In practice, I don't know if that was the same in Sprint Qualifying, but that makes life difficult and Spa is probably the worst track to have a pole position at."

"So, yeah, let's see and I'll go have a look. But I think the pace in the car is really strong and I felt good today so hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow," Piastri concluded.