Chinese GP data reveals how Piastri beat Russell and Norris to first career pole

Oscar Piastri has secured pole position for the Chinese GP. The Australian driver has once again outqualified Lando Norris and, this time without strategic errors, managed to place the McLaren MCL39 exactly where it deserved to be.

Piastri has delivered a new pole for the papaya team following its success in the opening round at the Australian GP. Once again, the Australian driver has beaten his teammate this weekend and will start from the front row for Sunday’s race.

Chinese GP F1 data: How Oscar Piastri earned first career pole position

After a surprising Sprint pole by Lewis Hamilton and the Ferrari driver’s dominant victory in the Sprint race, McLaren had a second chance to put their cars at the front – and they’ve done just that, as expected given the strong pace of the MCL39 in Shanghai.

However, Norris has slipped up once more, just like he did on Friday in SQ3. The current championship leader once again failed to execute a perfect lap in Q3, while Piastri – just like in Sprint Qualifying – found the sweet spot of the MCL39 in certain sections of the circuit that Norris could not.

As we can see, in general terms, Norris holds a speed advantage across larger portions of the track, but it’s Piastri – especially through the first hairpin and the fast corners 8 and 9 in Sector 2 – who gains the upper hand and makes the biggest difference. If we examine the Q3 lap telemetry, this is confirmed.

And while this might seem like an isolated event, it’s not. In Sprint Qualifying, Norris also struggled through these corners compared to Piastri and made a major mistake under braking into Turn 14 by pushing the braking point too far, which made the gap between both surpass the +0.4s barrier.

The truth is that Norris hasn’t looked particularly comfortable with the MCL39 in China. Despite doing a better job today, he admitted that while the car is fast, it’s extremely difficult to put together a great lap.

More from qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix

👉 Chinese GP: Piastri secures pole with lap record in qualifying, and a ‘little scream in my helmet’

👉 F1 starting grid: What is the grid order for the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix?

And this too is supported by the data. In terms of raw performance and ideal laps, McLaren should have secured a front-row lockout, preventing George Russell from sneaking into P2 in qualifying. And Piastri had almost +0.1s in his pocket to make the difference to the Mercedes driver even bigger.

All in all, Piastri has been the stronger McLaren driver so far all weekend. Once again in qualifying, even though Norris should have finished P2 based on performance – within a tenth of Piastri – he wasn’t able to maximise the result.

Now just two points ahead in the championship, the British driver will have to fight back on track if he wants to take his second win of the season following his victory in the Australian round opener.

Given the high tyre degradation in form of graining seen during the Sprint race, it seems McLaren – like much of the grid – has opted to slightly increase the aerodynamic load levels to reduce tyre strain through corners and keep a one-stop strategy viable for the race.

The Chinese GP promises to be extremely exciting with multiple storylines unfolding. One of them will undoubtedly be the internal battle at McLaren. After asking Piastri to hold position against Norris when the British driver was leading in Australia, will the papaya team return the favour and ask the same of Norris if he finds himself chasing down the Australian?

Another point of intrigue is whether McLaren still has more performance to unlock. The Sprint Race wasn’t particularly strong for the Woking-based team – although in the final laps Piastri appeared to have more life in his tyres, and with a few more laps, he might have been able to catch Lewis Hamilton.