Oscar Piastri facing 'interesting discussion' with McLaren ahead of Canadian GP qualifying

Oscar Piastri claims he faces an "interesting discussion" with McLaren following an off-day for the F1 championship leader.

Piastri and team-mate Lando Norris have dominated the majority of practice sessions this season, yet there was a double-first for the Australian at the end of Friday practice for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

For the first time this season, a McLaren did not feature in the top three in FP1. Norris was seventh and Piastri a lowly 14th. At the end of FP2, Piastri had improved to sixth, albeit more than four-tenths of a second behind pacesetter in Mercedes' George Russell, and second quickest Norris.

For the most part, it was a day of experimentation for McLaren, with Piastri trialling a new front wing in FP1 that sported 'mermaid tails', as well as a new suspension that was on Norris' MCL39 in FP2.

Assessing his performance, Piastri said: "It definitely ended better than it started, but still improvements to try and make.

"It's been a little bit of a tricky day just trying to find the right window with the car. I think we're getting there, but we still need to find a bit more.

"The competition looks close, also knowing what tyres to use is an interesting discussion at the moment. I'm sure we'll see how we can find a bit more tomorrow."

That was concerning the fact that it will be a judgment call on which tyres are the best to use in qualifying. Russell's leading time was on the mediums, whilst Norris was on the softs.

The C6 rubber, the softest compound in Pirelli's range, which is new for this season, is being used in Montreal. The medium is the soft tyre from last year.

As to the upgrade parts, with the new wing, in particular, a test item, Piastri added: "The new parts have done what we expected them to. Hopefully we can find a bit more.

"I think we've made a good step from FP1 to FP2. We just need to try and make the same step again."

Insisting there were "no alarm bells", Piastri concluded the objective now was about "trying to get the car in a better window, and get me in a better window".