Oscar Piastri points to season-long struggle in Zandvoort pole near-miss

Oscar Piastri has explained the 'season-long' struggle he has experienced in finding lap-time when changing from the medium to soft tyres, after missing out on Dutch GP Sprint pole.

Piastri qualified fourth for the fifth Sprint of the year, but was within a tenth of pole-sitter George Russell, with team-mate Lando Norris and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc between the Mercedes and McLaren of Piastri. 

Under F1's Sprint qualifying rules, drivers must use the medium tyres in both SQ1 and SQ2 before moving to a set of softs for SQ3.

Norris also reported difficulties in extracting the optimum amount of performance from the soft tyres, having been ahead of Russell throughout the medium-tyre segments, and fell 0.041s short of overhauling his fellow Briton, with Piastri 0.099s behind Russell.

Reflecting, Piastri explained how after a difficult free practice session, he had rebounded, but that the problem in extracting soft tyre performance remained, as it has all season. 

"The soft lap wasn't quite as good, and I feel like it's often been the case this year, that you put the soft tyres on and it is not quite as nice as the balance you have on the mediums," Piastri observed.

"But when I compare to where I was in practice, I'm much happier. We changed a few things, and I was a lot happier, so that's the positive: the progress from [Friday] morning.

"It was pretty close, and I feel like with a better lap, maybe we could have had pole, but I'm learning and improving, and that is the most important.

"It is going to be tight between us, Ferrari, and Mercedes, so it is going to be about filling in those last little details and gaps and seeing what we can do."