Wait a minute, who hurt McLaren? Recently, they have been extremely quick, and Lando Norris beat Max Verstappen at Miami, clocking his first win. Now at the Imola qualifiers, Lando Norris finished the 3rd fastest and Oscar Piastri was second fastest behind Verstappen. The McLaren upgrades are really effective as they managed to push both the Ferraris behind them. That would be a great start to have for McLaren, but the team made a mistake. Everything from the driver’s end is perfectly fine, however, it was Tom Stallard, Piastri’s engineer who got the Aussie in trouble.

Miscommunication from the team led to Oscar Piastri losing his front-row seat and here is what happened.

Oscar Piastri’s close call makes him lose his front row!

During qualifiers in F1, there are very simple rules stating that drivers on their out-lap are not supposed to block drivers on their hot lap. While Kevin Magnussen was on his hot lap, Piastri was still warming his car up to get a time recorded. Piastri did not know that Magnussen was coming from behind him, he ended up spoiling the Danish driver’s lap time.

When a driver is doing laps around the circuit during the qualifier, it is the engineer’s job to let them know that another car is approaching. A lack of communication between Oscar Piastri and Tom Stallard led to Piastri’s blunder.

Magnussen is not having the best season so far. He has only scored one point for the team at the Australian Grand Prix while his teammate Nico Hulkenberg has scored 6 points so far. So when Oscar Piastri ruined K. Mag’s flying lap, he was given a 3-position grid penalty. If it was not for the penalty, Piastri’s result would have put him in the front row, but now he will start at P5.

What does this mean for Lando Norris?

It means that Lando Norris will be starting at the front with Max Verstappen, of course! And considering that he is the only driver who has beaten Max Verstappen in a race on merit, this makes things extremely exciting. While Oscar Piastri was pushed behind because of the 3 position grid penalty, this might just mean another chance for Norris to add to his newly started collection of winning trophies.

Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished in around a 10th of Max Verstappen the polesitter.

Norris has the best seat against his rival and maybe now it’s time he shows what he has within him. Oscar Pastri is a sprint race winner, and he needs to become a GP winner soon. He is exhibiting the pace for a race winner and it might just be any day now that McLaren starts to regain their dominance around the F1 circuits.

Do you think Lando Norris has it in him to win the Imola Grand Prix? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.