Oscar Piastri had ‘not many levers to pull’ to improve Monaco F1 qualifying

Oscar Piastri said there were “not too many levers you can pull” to improve his McLaren after he qualified a frustrated seventh at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.

The Australian complained of a lack of grip on Friday in practice, with that trend continuing into Saturday even if the car was “nicer to drive” in qualifying.

However, he was left disappointed by the gap to the opposition ahead as he took seventh in all three sessions and ended the day 0.574s shy of pole man Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

He starts in front of team-mate Lando Norris, who also had a frustrating day.

“We're just lacking grip compared to the others,” said Oscar Piastri when asked by Crash.net about his issues.

“I think compared to yesterday, the car actually felt a pretty decent step nicer to drive, which is good.

“But also bad, when you're still as far off as we are.

“So we have got a bit closer, things feel a bit nicer, but when you are lacking grip, unfortunately, there's not too many levers you can pull to make up for it.”

Piastri survived a moment at Rascasse in the final session, which he says was a result of having to push more to make up for the McLaren’s lack of pace.

“That was the first lap of Q3,” he noted.

“It was pretty good until that point, but when you're pushing as hard as we are, and you know that you've got to find a fair bit of time to even stand a chance of being with the others, then mistakes and wild moments are going to happen.

“I think the second lap was a bit cleaner; it still wasn't perfect, but even with tidying that up, maybe I could have got a bit closer to P6 – but I still would have been seventh.”

McLaren’s weekend has been complicated by further experiments with the new front wing that was tried and then shelved in Montreal.

Piastri confirmed that it still needs some work.

“We went back to the older front wing,” he noted.

“We're still kind of testing it, and obviously you know here is not the easiest place to get a read on it, so that is a bit of a work in progress, but when you're missing six-tenths, it's not about the front wing.”

Last year’s race saw chess games up and down the field as drivers backed the pack up to create gaps for team-mates to pit.

Asked if we might see a repeat, Piastri said: "Possibly. I don't know what the grid looks like.

“If there's cars that are out of position or stuff like that, then yes. But for us, there's nothing we can really do, so we'll see what the race holds.

“I think managing the power unit is still going to be important, because it's very sensitive to pace, amount of full throttle time, amount of braking time, whether you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it seems like!

“That's going to be an important thing to still manage, but providing no one gets that dramatically wrong, then it's still going to be a Monaco race.”