Oscar Piastri: The advantage of Mercedes is surprising

      McLaren drivers assess the qualifying results differently: while Oscar Piastri insists that his fifth place is close to what could be expected, and he is only surprised by the extent of Mercedes' advantage, Lando Norris does not hide his dissatisfaction with the performance of the McLaren car.

      Oscar Piastri (5th): "I think the result is close to what we were expecting. However, it is surprising how much Mercedes has outpaced everyone, although I believe we could have fought for third place, but we did not perform well in qualifying.

      With these new cars, you have to change something on every lap, so the power unit's performance varies, and things don't always go as you expect. But this qualifying session taught us a lot; now we need to analyze the collected information, and I think that overall the level we are at meets expectations.

      It's hard to predict how the race will go. But Mercedes looks very confident on long runs, while we limited ourselves to short runs in practice and didn't conduct any long ones at all. So uncertainty remains, and there are also questions regarding the starts.

      Qualifying may not fully reflect the competitive order, but it is clear that tomorrow we need to try to act as correctly as possible."

      Lando Norris (6th): "Qualifying did not go well. I think only George Russell will say that everything is fine. We lacked stability – one lap could go well, and the next one would be different. Overall, there are too many difficulties.

      From the very beginning of the weekend, I was in an unfavorable position, I didn't complete enough laps, and the car is complicated – I wish there were fewer technical issues, but that happens too.

      We are trying to sort everything out, but it can be said that at the start of the season, they are expected, and the task is to minimize them. So far, luck is not on my side this weekend; in the final qualifying session, I ran over some debris, and the front wing on my car was damaged.

      My life is complicated by the insufficiently effective performance of the car and the fact that I completed few laps."