How Piastri chased his target of improved qualifying over F1 2025

Formula 1 championship leader Oscar Piastri targeted improved qualifying performances in the off-season prior to 2025, which he believes has translated into stronger overall races throughout the year.

After two years spent largely in the shadow of McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, Piastri began his third season in much greater form and leads the Briton by nine points in the championship with 10 races remaining.

Speaking exclusively to Autosport, Piastri delved into the areas in which he felt he’d improved the most. Although greater tyre management in races has been attributed to his forward momentum this season, Piastri contended that he had made the more significant gains in that area last season.

Instead, he felt that he was making “a lot of races more difficult” by lacking the extra couple of tenths in qualifying – and his overall form has improved by getting the Saturday sessions right on a more regular basis.

“I think [the improvement] has been a bit across the board,” Piastri said. “I felt like from 2023 to 2024, I took a pretty big step in tyre management.

“But ultimately there was still a few weekends where it wasn’t really tyre management anymore, it was just pace that I needed. And when you are lacking pace, the easiest way to try and make that up is in the high-speed corners, which is the worst for the tyres.

“So it looked a bit different last year, and on the weekends where I felt like I had just had good underlying pace, that wasn’t a problem.

“But there still were those weekends every now and again where I needed to find a bit extra. I think just trying to find performance was the biggest thing in the off season before this year, and just trying to find that wherever we can in qualifying.

“I was making a lot of races more difficult than I wanted to last year, so trying to improve that has naturally made a lot of races look quite different to what I had last year.

“That was kind of a big focus point of ‘how do I improve that result’. But obviously you can’t just go into it saying, ‘I’m going to qualify better this year’. You need to work out how.

“That’s been a big focus, but I think a lot of the gains I’ve tried to make in chasing that have also transferred to race day as well.”

Piastri explained the process of turning around his qualifying form, particularly given the tight margins currently observed on F1’s grid in 2025; pole has often been decided by hundredths, rather than tenths, over the year.

He says that, although finding key strands in data and working around them was a key component behind this improvement, he said that finding those tiny fractions of a second needed to come from all area – including mental and physical facets.

“There was definitely a lot of focus on data points and how I can change my driving a little bit, what things I needed to work on,” he explained.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Were there specific types of corners? Were there specific tracks? All those kind of things. That was the main part of it because that’s where the science is and that’s where you can get behind it.

“But also just trying to be better in every way: whether that’s from a mental standpoint, physical standpoint, how I drive the car, how I get the most out of the team around me.

“We’re talking about such fine margins, especially this year – we’ve had so many qualifying sessions decided by less than a tenth that you really do need to try and get those hundredths from wherever you can.

“I’m trying to find it from everywhere. But obviously there was a lot of work with my engineers and the team around me to try and work out how I can ultimately drive faster.”