BARCELONA, Spain — Championship leader Oscar Piastri snatched pole position away from teammate Lando Norris in dramatic fashion at the Spanish Grand Prix.
A stellar 1:11.546 lap from Piastri at the death gave him a relatively comfortable 0.2s gap to Norris in the other McLaren.
Norris had been up by 0.017s after the first runs of Q3 but was unable to improve on his final lap.
It will be a morale boosting pole position for Piastri, who saw Norris close the gap in the title fight to three points by winning last week’s Monaco Grand Prix.
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“Nice work, very nicely done,” Piastri said on team radio. “Quite some turnaround from last year, so well done everyone. Let’s have ourselves some fun tomorrow.”
After days of speculation about whether McLaren’s advantage might be pegged back by a technical directive around front wings, the papaya cars looked as dominant as they have all season.
Fittingly it was Max Verstappen and George Russell, the next two drivers in the championship fight locked out the second row of the grid with an identical lap of 1:11.848, 0.302s off Piastri’s benchmark.
Source: espn.com