Oscar Piastri: "Would we have won the pole position with the medium? Maybe!"

(Motorsport-Total.com) - In the end, Oscar Piastri was the fastest in qualifying for the Formula 1 race in Montreal on Saturday ( follow the live ticker here ) – but only the fastest on soft tires. However, this circumstance didn't suffice for pole position in Canada, which went to Mercedes driver George Russell by two-tenths.

Second place also went to Max Verstappen, a driver who had set his crucial Q3 time on the medium tires. Piastri, on the other hand, had to settle for third place. Given his mixed weekend up to that point, the McLaren driver is perfectly happy with that.

"To be honest, I'm pretty happy with third place here," said the World Championship leader after qualifying. Things hadn't been going well for him in practice beforehand. In the morning session, he even crashed into the Wall of Champions with his MCL39.

"We've had difficulties so far this weekend. In qualifying, we found our rhythm a bit better and things became a bit more normal again," he says. "The car was working again."

Piastri wanted to play it safe

Of course, Piastri also wonders what would have happened if he had ridden the mediums. The idea was always in the back of his mind, but it wasn't really considered – "at least not for me," says the Australian.

After his crash in practice, he wanted to play it safe and do a clean run on the same tires - "no additional variables that could have made it even more difficult. That's what we stuck to," said Piastri.

"I think that's been our strength so far this year: staying true to our plan and doing what's best for us. Would we have been on pole with the medium? Maybe. But there's also the risk that things could go wrong and we'll be worse off than we are now. So I'm pretty happy."

Team principal Andrea Stella says that with the C6 tire, there's always the concern that the C5 tire might be a bit faster. "The C6 may have more grip, but it's harder to use," the Italian says.

"We did a bit of testing in practice and saw that our car and our drivers felt relatively comfortable on the C6. So we opted for a 4-1-2 allocation: four softs, one medium, and two hards. And we stuck to using only the softs in qualifying, with no variations."

Because it can unsettle drivers if you switch from one compound to another.

Will the medium still have an advantage in the race?

And whether the medium tyres really provided an advantage is difficult for the Italian to say. "Sure, George and Max were able to set good times with the medium tyres. But to be fair, they were fast all weekend. So it's hard to say whether the pole position was due to the medium tyres or to the fact that Mercedes, as expected, was very competitive on this track," says Stella.

Furthermore, using the medium would have been a disadvantage, he points out. Because the set will be used in the race tomorrow, and then there wouldn't have been a fresh set. "And with the degradation we expect in the race, that could cost us some performance," the team boss says.

"We'll see tomorrow what the right strategy was. But for our car, the medium wasn't necessarily the faster tire on a single lap."

In the race, Piastri will likely have to contend with Russell and Verstappen in front of him if he wants to win. And although he didn't look particularly good in any of his runs on Friday, he's optimistic that he can take on the fight.

"I definitely feel more comfortable now than I did this morning or yesterday. Our pace on race days is usually our strength," he says. "The two next to me were very fast in the long runs yesterday, so it certainly won't be a walk in the park. But we're definitely in the fight."

Where has McLaren's dominance gone?

Nevertheless, Canada has been an unusual weekend from McLaren's perspective so far. There's no sign of their previous dominance, and instead they're lagging slightly behind their rivals. Has the competition closed the gap?

Piastri wouldn't read too much into the result: "Apart from one or two qualifying sessions, it was usually very close," he says. "Today, there was the added complication of the medium and soft tires." He added that Mercedes was also strong last year.

"There are a thousand possible reasons. But yesterday we were behind. Even this morning, I personally wasn't particularly happy. In qualifying, it was the usual close battle. That's the price you pay when you don't get everything together right from the start," he says.

"Maybe half a tenth is missing, and that can make the difference. That was more or less the case today. The gap was bigger, of course, but there were other factors. So we were in the fight, but we paid the price for a somewhat turbulent weekend."