P1racenews AI automatic summary:
McLaren enjoyed a strong qualifying result in Saudi Arabia as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris ended the session in fifth and sixth respectively.
After securing the third row of the grid in Saudi Arabia, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri unveiled the behind-the-scenes efforts. Piastri finished fifth in the session, narrowly overtaking teammate Lando Norris in sixth place. This marked an improvement from McLaren’s performance in Bahrain, where they started from the fourth row. McLaren was confident that their performance in Bahrain did not truly reflect their pace for the upcoming season due to their historical struggles on that track configuration. Piastri highlighted that the track conditions in Jeddah favored McLaren during qualifying, providing a better car feeling. Despite a near-early end to his qualifying session after hitting a wall in Q1, Piastri explained that a too conservative set-up during free practice made the car unpredictable for qualifying. He mentioned that while the car still has limitations, the track grip and layout in Jeddah played in their favor.
