Piastri thrilled to ‘get a result’ with pole in Spa Sprint Qualifying while Norris ‘not the happiest’ in third

Oscar Piastri was delighted to “get a result” after taking pole position in Sprint Qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix, while McLaren team mate Lando Norris admitted that he was “not the happiest” following his P3 finish.

Having been disappointed by his race last time out at Silverstone – in which he received a 10-second time penalty – Piastri looked determined to make up for that as the weekend got underway at Spa-Francorchamps, bouncing back from a deleted lap time in SQ2 to go fastest in SQ3 on a time of 1m 40.510s.

Reflecting on his session after jumping out of the car, the Australian was all smiles as he said: “It was a good lap. A little scare in SQ2 with the lap deletion, but the car’s been mega all day and I feel like I’ve been able to put in a lot of good laps.

“Thanks to the team, the car’s been great and this is a track I love. It’s my favourite one of the year and, I don’t know, maybe that gave me a couple of extra tenths! It’s always good fun around here, when the car’s handling as well as it is today it’s a pleasure.”

Quizzed on why he had appeared so confident throughout the day at Spa, Piastri responded: “I don’t know. The car has been in a good window from Lap 1, and again it’s a track I always enjoy coming to and, yeah, I don’t know why.

“I think [I] 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 it’s nice to get a result today.”

Looking ahead to how he might fare in Saturday’s Sprint, Piastri admitted that there are still some unknowns but sounded an optimistic note.

“I need to go and look,” the 24-year-old said. “The Red Bulls were very quick in a straight line, in practice – I don’t know if it was the same in Sprint Qualifying, but that makes life difficult and Spa is probably the worst track to have pole position at!

“Let’s see and I’ll go have a look, but the pace in the car is really strong. I’ve felt good today so hopefully we can have a good race tomorrow.”

Norris, meanwhile, had displayed good pace during the session but ultimately crossed the line in third, with the Red Bull of Max Verstappen sandwiched between the two McLaren cars.

Pushed on how he assessed his final run in Sprint Qualifying, the Briton explained: “Not quick enough, I guess, is the only thing. It wasn’t the cleanest of laps but still quite a big gap to the top. Not too disappointed, it’s third, it’s for the Sprint so not the biggest worry but, yeah, some things to work on.”

When asked if he had taken too much life out of his tyres, Norris answered: “It’s impossible to say, maybe it made my tyres better. You don’t know those things, but we’ll look at it overnight.”

Despite missing out on pole for the Sprint, the 25-year-old suggested that he was not too worried about how his session went.

“It’s just Friday so I’m not too fussed,” said Norris. “Not the happiest of course, I would like to be a bit quicker than I was today. But it’s the way it is and I just have to do some more work tonight.”