Oscar Piastri admitted he was stunned to lose pole position after the track conditions changed drastically at the end of qualifying.

The McLaren driver appeared to be in a two-way fight for pole position with team mate Lando Norris for much of the qualifying session. He set the fastest time when drivers completed their first runs in Q3.

However between Q2 and Q3 the wind picked up and track surface temperatures dropped. Piastri said the balance of his car felt much worse and despite adjusting his approach for his final run he still struggled for grip.

“My first lap in Q3, I wasn’t that surprised that it was half a second off because of some – ‘mistakes’ is probably harsh on myself – but just not predicting what the wind was going to do in certain corners as well as I could have.

“But on the second lap, I thought I did a better job of adjusting my expectations, and I didn’t go any faster. So it was a bit strange, one for us to look through, but it wasn’t very fun losing that half a second.”

Piastri set a 1’14.941 in Q2 but only managed a 1’15.398 in Q3. He said the session was “bizarre and somewhat frustrating.”

“The conditions completely changed and it was just weird. My first lap felt terrible because I was pushing too much, with the wind direction from the first two sessions in mind.

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“Then I felt like I did a better job on the second lap of managing expectations, and it was even worse. So it was a bizarre session.

“I need to look back and see what differences it made. Things definitely felt more tricky for myself as well in Q3, but I think for everybody it would have been difficult so that’s not our excuse.”

Norris also struggled in Q3 which allowed Charles Leclerc to beat the McLaren drivers to take a surprise pole position. He said he was also surprised not to improve on his second lap in Q3.

“Q2 felt very good, I felt confident to improve,” he said. “So into Q3 I was aiming for a similar lap time [at] similar limits and it just felt pretty dreadful.

“I wasn’t surprised that I did a 15.4 in the first run. But in the second lap, it’s just hard to know how much more to push or not push. And I [thought] it was a much better lap and I was 15.4 again.”

He said the gusty conditions had the biggest effect on how his car handled. “The wind has such big effects on the car when you’re driving,” said Norris. “It’s quite easy for it to be half-a-second swing.

“So it’s frustrating because we definitely seem to have a good gap, but in Q3 it seemed to drift away from us as a team more than it did for others.”

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