Oscar Piastri laments lack of straight line speed after losing Belgian GP sprint

Oscar Piastri was left to rue a lack of straight line speed on his McLaren after being pipped to victory by Red Bull rival Max Verstappen in the Belgian Grand Prix sprint race.

Championship leader Piastri had already warned about the risk of losing the lead on the opening lap, describing the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit as the “worst place” to take pole position on Friday.

His fear came true when fellow front row starter Verstappen took advantage of the tow to slip past him on the Kemmel straight, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc making a similar move on the other McLaren of Lando Norris for third place.

For the remainder of the 15-lap sprint, Piastri remained within Verstappen’s DRS zone and kept him honest, but the skinnier rear wing on the Red Bull meant the Australian was never really in position to pull off a move.

Piastri eventually had to concede defeat to the four-time world champion, a day after he had broken the all-time Spa F1 lap record with a time that was half a second quicker than anyone else.

“I tried my best to snake my way through the straights and not give too much of a tow,” he said. But no, I just didn't have enough straight line speed - and then didn't have enough straight line speed for the next 15 laps either. 

“Still a good result, still good points. It is only the sprint, the main points are tomorrow. Pretty happy with it, but obviously a bit frustrating I couldn't get past [Verstappen].”

F1 teams are allowed to make changes to their car between the sprint race and main qualifying, giving McLaren a chance to tweak the MCL39 to address its straight line speed deficit.

However, with rain in the forecast, Piastri was wary of committing to a low-downforce setup.

“The weather is looking pretty bad for tomorrow, which obviously means you probably don't want to take off too much wing, but I don't really want to repeat the sprint we've just had,” he explained his dilemma.

“We'll have a look, see what we can do. There's a lot of things to look into before tomorrow.”