Oscar Piastri brushes off flexi-wing rule impact on McLaren after pole

Oscar Piastri has brushed off suggestions that a new FIA technical directive on front wing flexing had any impact on McLaren’s performance at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix.

The F1 world championship leader produced a stunning lap in qualifying to beat McLaren teammate and direct title rival Lando Norris to pole at Barcelona by 0.209 seconds. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third-quickest, 0.302s slower than Piastri.

McLaren’s advantage suggests that more stringent load tests to clampdown on front wing flexing had no effect on the reigning world champions. The likes of Red Bull and Ferrari pushed for the changes in the hope it would peg McLaren back.

Asked if the technical directive had posed any challenges for McLaren, Piastri replied: “Erm… No. Not because of the technical directive, no.

“Every weekend we’ve gone to there’s been things to fine-tune but we had the same problems as usual. It was nothing new.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the technical directive ended up being “quite immaterial”.

"The Technical Directive was a big talking point. It was quite immaterial. It was always going to be minor when you look at the numbers,” Stella told Sky Sports F1.

"It entertained to have this kind of debate but our simulations said everything was very small. We weren't concerned from this point of view.”

Piastri delighted to be back on pole

Piastri secured his fourth pole of the season with the biggest margin of 2025 so far - a week after he was outperformed by Norris in Monaco. 

“It was pretty good. I think sector one in particular felt quite strong and half way through sector two,” Piastri said of his final Q3 lap. 

“The back-end of the lap was a little bit tricker and I actually lost a little bit of time. I think here if you use up your tyres in the first half of the lap the second half becomes very tough.

“I knew I had some corners to tidy up in the first half of the lap, which I felt like I did a good job of. Maybe I just got too excited for the second half of the lap. I don’t know, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Maybe it was just a lack of talent in the second half. I think when you push the tyres like that and get everything out of them, there's probably a bit of a price to pay because the last sector the corners are so slow and so long.

“If I was to do it again maybe I’d tweak it slightly but I don’t really care now.”