Oscar Piastri disappointed after costly Pierre Gasly qualifying spin

Oscar Piastri's missed opportunity due to Pierre Gasly's late spin in qualifying may influence betting odds for the Austrian Grand Prix. Despite starting third, Piastri’s strong championship position could make him a favorable bet against his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, who takes pole. Punters might capitalize on the expected strong race performance of the McLaren cars, potentially placing bets on podium finishes.

Oscar Piastri was left lamenting a late qualifying spin for Pierre Gasly that cost the Australian a shot at a higher grid position for the Austrian Grand Prix. Piastri will line up third on the grid behind McLaren team-mate Lando Norris on pole and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc after having to abort his final flying lap.

Piastri’s best Qualifying 3 lap was a 1:04.554, almost six-tenths down on Norris, who was the only driver to lap the Red Bull Ring in under 64 seconds. The championship leader had his chances to challenge his team-mate thwarted after being caught out by yellow flags for the recovering Gasly.

A spin at the final turn at the end of his flying lap saw the Alpine driver bounce through the gravel and onto the grass, completing a neat 720-degree turn, before finding himself back on track and pointing in the right direction. It was an incident covered by double-waved yellow flags, compromising those directly behind Gasly on track who were forced to slow.

First on the scene was Piastri, who was unable to open what would have been his final flying lap as a consequence. Even allowing for that incident, the Aussie suggested he still probably didn’t have quite what he needed to steal pole from his team-mate.

“I think through all of qualifying, I was missing that last tenth, but not getting the chance to do my final Q3 run was quite frustrating,” Piastri said. “Sometimes those things are going to happen. I was quite happy that I didn’t lose more spots by not doing that. So, third’s still an okay place to start around here. You can race around this track, so try and make some progress.”

It proved a steady build-up to qualifying for Piastri, who was third quickest in opening practice, a session Norris missed as McLaren completed one of its mandatory rookie sessions with Alex Dunne. Back for Free Practice 2, Norris topped proceedings from Piastri, the pair then split by 0.118s at the top of the standings in the final hour of practice.

Piastri had a handful of moments through the final practice hour, including dropping a wheel over the kerb at Turn 9, which slewed his McLaren sideways. He also missed his braking point into Turn 1, and took to the tarmac run-off to re-join.

“FP1 was a little bit of a messy start, but then I felt pretty good through the rest of practice,” he explained. “And qualifying again felt quite good. It’s very difficult around here to get that perfect lap because there’s a lot of corners that have gravel on the exit, and you’ve got to be pretty careful there.

“But there’s also a lot of corners that you miss an apex by five centimetres one way or the other, and you’ve lost a couple of tenths easily. It’s not the easiest track to hook up, even though it’s short, and I just kind of felt like I didn’t quite do that today. So, a bit of a shame.”

While starting third, Piastri heads into Sunday’s Austrian GP with a 22-point advantage over Norris in the drivers’ championship.

Piastri believes he had more than third in him during qualifying.

Planet F1