Oscar Piastri has revealed improving in qualifying is his main point of focus for the 2025 Formula 1 season after comparing unfavourably to McLaren team-mate Lando Norris.
Piastri was outqualified 21-3 by Norris in 2024, albeit often by small margins, with Norris also getting the better of the Australian in sprint qualifying this year. That means Piastri has regressed compared to his rookie 2023 season, when he outperformed Norris on seven Saturdays despite being less experienced at that stage than he is now.
Some of that is explained by Norris having made several decisive errors in 2023 which knocked him back on the starting grid, an area the 2024 championship runner-up worked on with the team over the last off-season.
It now looks like Piastri will follow a similar process of soul searching this winter to iron out his own qualifying weaknesses that seeped into his driving over the past campaign.
"This season I feel like I made good steps forward, there is still room to go," said Piastri, who finished fourth in the 2024 standings.
"The biggest one has been leaving a few too many positions on the table in qualifying. I don't think I've ever really made life easy on myself in the races in that aspect. So that's the big focus of the off-season, trying to get those last hundredths, last tenths.
"I feel like in all the other areas, I have been able to show what I'm capable of and also show that I have improved. So again, now it is just putting everything together because the gaps now are very small, or non-existent, so if I can get it all together, then I will be on my way."
One silver lining, according to the 23-year-old, is that he has a good grasp of how he can improve his execution in qualifying rather than having to try and understand where the lap time has to come from.
When asked by Autosport if he is confident he can make that next step, Piastri said: "I think so, the big thing for me is there have not been many occasions where it has been hard for me to understand where the time has gone.
"After qualifying [in Abu Dhabi, where he was two tenths down on polesitter Norris], I pretty much knew immediately where I had gone wrong. It's not a case of really needing to find that extra step, it's being able to be on top of my game every time.
"I feel like when I have been on it, I have been good enough. That's not to say there's not still room to grow on top of that, but the encouraging thing is the potential has been there. So, the next step is realising that potential every weekend. If I can do that, we are in for a fun season."
