Oscar Piastri baffled by McLaren’s pace struggles in Singapore

Oscar Piastri has been left perplexed at McLaren’s lack of competitiveness in qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Championship leader Piastri took third place behind Mercedes’ George Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as he missed out on pole position by 0.366 seconds.

Crucially for Piastri, his title rival and McLaren teammate Lando Norris could only qualify fifth, behind the second Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli.

While Piastri did not feel McLaren had the pace to challenge for pole, he was left baffled as to why he could not find similar improvements to his rivals as the track ramped up.

“I think there was a little bit left but not enough to get pole,” Piastri said.

“We seemed to be good through practice, we seemed pretty good in Q1 and then we found a little bit of time and others found a lot of time.

“A little bit kind of surprising that we couldn’t find more, but ultimately I don’t think the car had enough in it for pole.

“I’m pretty happy with the job I’ve done. Was it perfect? No, but I feel like it’s been a good weekend and been close to the limit of what the car’s been able to do.”

Why did McLaren struggle?

Explaining McLaren’s lack of performance, team principal Andrea Stella said: “We entered qualifying to achieve a pole position but we see a pattern now where we have lots of braking, bumps and kerbs.

“We saw in Canada and Baku and now today, that on this track layout, other cars are competitive.

"Still a good position for the race tomorrow.”

Norris believes the issues were caused by McLaren struggling to get their front tyres up to the right operating temperature.

"Everyone seems to be struggling with the front tyres this weekend,” he said.

"We know that's a weakness of our car. At times it's also my worst nightmare, understeer. Like we've seen in Vegas, whenever people struggle to get the front tyres in, Mercedes normally rides to the top, like they've done this weekend.

"We just couldn't get the front of the car to work this weekend."

McLaren will win the constructors' championship on Sunday if they score 13 points.