Piastri claims ‘psychological’ victory as Norris warned of ‘complicated’ situation

Oscar Piastri’s surprise pole position at a Dutch Grand Prix weekend dominated by Lando Norris has not only given him a “psychological” advantage, but it’s also potentially moved Norris into a rear-gunner role in the race.

After all, says 1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, McLaren’s advantage wasn’t as big as initially expected, which means the second car on the road may have to “cover” Max Verstappen.

Oscar Piastri’s Dutch GP pole was ‘very important, psychologically’

Claiming the practice session hat-trick around the Zandvoort circuit, Norris went into qualifying as the favourite to claim pole position.

However, when all was said and done, it was Piastri parking behind the number ‘1’ board with his new Zandvoort lap record of 1:08.662, leaving him 0.012s ahead of Norris.

The Briton, who trails Piastri by nine points in the Drivers’ standings, downplayed his defeat.

“It’s not like I’ve dominated it,” he insisted. “I’ve just been ever so slightly ahead, and it’s just switched the other way around for quali.”

Piastri, in turn, wasn’t crowing about his qualifying victory, putting it down to “peaking at the right time” before going on to stress that “you’ve still got all the points tomorrow.”

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But if you ask 1997 F1 World Champion Villeneuve, the championship leader took a victory far weightier than a fifth pole position on Saturday.

“We’ve been talking about the championship and what games are being played or not, and the effect it has,” said the Sky F1 guest pundit. “And this is important today.

“All weekend, free practice, all through qualifying, Lando kept doing perfect lap after perfect lap and Piastri was a tenth and a half, two tenths behind. That was a huge gap as a teammate.

“And now just in that last lap that counted, a few hundredths left in the first sector, and Piastri does his best lap when it matters. He got all the balls in together.

“Very important, psychologically.”

The ramifications could rumble on into Sunday’s 72-lap grand prix.

Although McLaren appeared to have a huge lead over its rivals in the practice sessions, Max Verstappen pulled it back in qualifying and could yet pose a threat in Sunday’s race.

That means whichever McLaren is second on the track, he could be used to “cover” Verstappen’s strategy first and foremost in order to ensure McLaren takes the win.

“It’s super close,” Villeneuve continued. “And then when you look behind, they weren’t eight-tenths of a second ahead of everyone. Everyone got closer.

“Does that mean that the strategies in the race, one of the drivers will have to cover Verstappen, for example?

“That’s the difficulty when two teammates are fighting. When you’re fighting another team, you just play an open strategy.

“When it’s two teammates, the one who’s leading the race out of the two has the first choice on strategy. It’s a little bit complicated.”

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