McLaren rue near-perfect Oscar Piastri after pit wall moment

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella hailed Oscar Piastri for delivering 'an almost perfect qualifying session', but was also left breathing a sigh of relief following a close call.

Piastri will start the Belgian sprint at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit from pole position after destroying the field with a lap record that left Red Bull's Max Verstappen and McLaren team-mate Lando Norris trailing by almost half a second and six-tenths of a second respectively.

However, Piastri's stunning lap of 1:40.510s was almost not witnessed after he only just scraped into the top-10 shoot-out.

The Australian had opened SQ2 with a lap marginally quicker than his leading SQ1 time, only for it to be deleted for exceeding track limits through Raidillon, forcing Piastri into a second lap on the same set of tyres.

Initially, it appeared as if he would comfortably make it through to SQ3, only for the track evolution to ramp up considerably in the closing stages, leaving Piastri hanging on, scraping through by just 0.041s to Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson.

"That was a pretty amazing lap by Oscar," said Stella, reflecting on the session. "I think he capitalised on everything available in the car, and he took a decent step going from the medium [mandatory in SQ1 and SQ2] to the soft [for SQ3].

"I would say an almost perfect session from Oscar, apart from the deletion of the lap in SQ2 that gave us a bit of a moment on the pit wall, but he fixed it with the second lap, and he deserved the pole for the sprint."

With upgrades on the car, including a new floor and rear wing. Stella claimed that "things are going as expected", but he remains mindful of the threat posed by Verstappen.

The four-time F1 champion's RB21 has also been upgraded for this weekend, notably with a new front wing, and with a trade-off in downforce for straight-line speed, Verstappen was quickest in certain parts of the circuit.

"We see that everyone is very competitive," said Stella. "Max was there in practice, was there for this sprint quali, but there is quite a lot ahead of us. It's only the sprint quali of the sprint race, so there's a lot to do here in Spa.

"There is a long straight to go before the first relevant corner, so anything can happen on the first lap.

"We have a very interesting weekend ahead of us, but it's good to be in a solid position, and it's good to have Lando also there ready to take his own opportunities."