- Piastri will start the Monaco GP from second position
- Local hero Charles Leclerc took pole
- The couple has a joke about being ‘family’
Australian Oscar Piastri will start the Monaco Grand Prix from the front row after a spectacular performance in qualifying, finishing just behind local hero Charles Leclerc.
Max Verstappen’s pole record was slowed by Charles Leclerc’s impressive lap on his home streets of Monaco.
Piastri’s final lap left him just behind the Ferrari driver, with Carlos Sainz in third, ahead of Lando Norris in the other McLaren.
Piastri believes he could have taken pole had it not been for some errors on the final lap.
Oscar Piastri (pictured) will start the Monaco Grand Prix from the front row after a qualifying performance
Charles Leclerc took pole position, ahead of Piastri and Carlos Sainz in third place.
“I think if you had taken the second half of my first lap in Q3 and the first half of the second, it would have been enough,” Piastri said.
“A couple of mistakes at the end, but you have to give credit to Charles because he has been incredibly fast all weekend. At certain times I don’t think anyone thought we were going to get close to him.
‘(It’s) good to start in the front row. I feel like it’s been a good weekend in terms of building momentum and what better colors to do it with than these.”
Piastri has a running joke with Leclerc about finding family roots in Monaco, and Leclerc offers to adopt the 23-year-old if he can’t find any.
The Australian addressed X after the session to continue the banter, writing: “Good day to the Leclerc family.”
He later shared a photo of himself and Leclerc, writing: ‘Two locals in the front row. Who would have thought?’.
Leclerc was also in on the joke, and when asked about racing, the young Australian replied: “I mean, we’re a family.”
“Starting in the front row, we’re both having a meeting with my mom tonight and hopefully she’ll calm us down.”
Piastri’s mother found all this amusing and announced in X that she is willing to give up her son.
‘There seems to be a vacancy for a son in my family, @yukitsunoda07?’ she wrote in X.
Piastri knows he has a big task ahead of him to overtake Leclerc on Monaco’s notoriously narrow track.
“A good start always helps, and if you can get the lead you can control it very easily here, so that’s probably the first goal,” he said.
‘If not, then with strategy.
‘No matter how optimistic I want to be, overtaking here is not easy. “We will do our best, but starting from a good place, (there is) a chance to have a good day tomorrow.”
