Piastri Jokes He Needs ‘Tow Bar’ to Match Mercedes Pace in Baku

Oscar Piastri secured third on the grid for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after a challenging buildup to qualifying, but the McLaren driver conceded that challenging the front-row Mercedes machines for victory remains a tall order.

While Piastri missed out on a front-row spot by just 0.001 seconds to Charles Leclerc, the gap to pole-sitter George Russell stood at a substantial 0.838 seconds. When asked in the post-qualifying press conference if he could pressure Russell during the race, Piastri responded with characteristic wit.

“If he’s got a tow bar that I can hook onto the back of, maybe,” he smiled. “But yeah, we’ll see what we can do.”

Russell’s dominant pace suggests his teammate, Kimi Antonelli, would likely have joined him on the front row had he not crashed in Q1. Given Baku’s overtaking opportunities, Antonelli could still factor into the fight behind the leading Mercedes. Meanwhile, McLaren’s uncompetitive practice form—where neither car finished higher than sixth in any session—hinted the team might be on the defensive come race day.

Piastri acknowledged the squad’s struggles but noted qualifying delivered an unexpected uplift.

George Russell, Mercedes, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

“It’s been not an easy weekend, for sure, from a few areas,” Piastri said. “We’ve not been particularly quick. We were also running cable ties on our car through Friday, which is never a great sign. So it’s been a little bit of a tricky one for us.”

The Australian revealed a brake vibration issue on Friday morning forced the team to improvise with cable ties to avoid losing track time. Despite the adversity, McLaren found significant pace when it mattered.

“In qualifying we found a bit of pace. So, yeah, it’s not the first time that’s happened to us this year,” Piastri explained. “We seem like we’re a bit on the back foot through practice, we come out in qualifying and, yeah, we just find that bit extra. I was pretty surprised to see us 1-2 after the first lap of Q3, but unfortunately, we had no hope against George.”

Piastri remains optimistic about McLaren’s race prospects against the rest of the field. “The Mercedes look incredibly quick here, but everyone else looks like they’re in a similar-ish kind of pack. And our race pace looked pretty good yesterday, to be honest. So I think we can hang on and battle in the pack behind George, and see what lap Kimi starts coming through as well.”

Teammate Lando Norris will start from fifth position.

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