Oscar Piastri bemoans mistake which cost him F1 Belgian GP pole

Oscar Piastri was left rueing a mistake which he feels cost him pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The F1 championship leader appeared to be the quicker McLaren driver but was pipped to pole in Belgium by teammate and title rival Lando Norris.

Piastri ended up second as McLaren locked out the front row and was just 0.085s shy of Norris.

After qualifying, Piastri revealed an error at Turn 14 was the reason he missed out on pole.

Asked how much the mistake had cost him, Piastri replied: “A lot… Enough.”

When pushed on whether it was enough to take pole, Piastri responded: “I think so, yeah.

“The lap until that point was strong but it doesn’t really matter if you could of done it, I didn’t. A bit disappointing. Both laps in Q3 were a bit like that but it’s how it goes sometimes unfortunately, so a bit of a shame.

“But the car was great again and I was in a reasonably good flow just didn’t quite happen on the second lap.”

Pushing the limits ‘bit’ Piastri

Piastri insisted he felt as confident in McLaren’s car as when he claimed a dominant pole for the sprint race during Friday’s qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps.

“Not really no, in all honesty it [the car] felt very similar [to sprint qualifying],” he explained. “You get a few more laps on softs, you explore the limits a bit more, you push the limits a bit more maybe and today that probably bit.

“But it still felt very good and I had just as much confidence as yesterday, so it definitely wasn’t that.”

Piastri indicated that he would prefer a dry race to have a better chance of launching an early attack on Norris to challenge for the lead, but current forecasts are pointing towards Sunday’s grand prix being wet.

“Let’s see,” he said of Sunday’s race. “If it’s wet it obviously adds in some other challenges too but we’ll have to wait and see what the weather does first. I know what I'm hoping for.”

Piastri holds a nine-point advantage over Norris in the championship.