{"id":304075,"date":"2023-06-04T21:51:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T21:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=304075"},"modified":"2023-06-05T01:00:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T01:00:04","slug":"back-to-reality-piastris-stinging-spanish-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=304075","title":{"rendered":"'Back to reality': Piastri's stinging Spanish truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a sensational qualifying effort on Saturday evening, McLaren<\/a> plunged back to reality at the Spanish Grand Prix.<\/a><\/p>\n

Lando Norris<\/a> started third, and Oscar Piastri<\/a> ninth. Contact with Lewis Hamilton<\/a> at the first corner \ufeffsaw Norris last at the end of the first lap.<\/p>\n

Piastri was never able to make progress, as it became obvious McLaren still has some work to do to find a competitive race pace.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Fan arrested for offensive shirt referencing tragedy<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> French Open star disqualified for hitting ball girl<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Left-field answer to almighty Fittler headache<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

"Unfortunately the McLarens were a little bit one-lap wonders this weekend," Martin Brundle said on Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

"They knew it, they were quite open about that. They had just a sweet spot in qualifying but their car, it hasn't worked out in the race for McLaren sadly."\ufeff<\/p>\n

Piastri was never in contention for points, and sunk back through the field to finish 13th. Norris was four spots further back in 17th.<\/p>\n

"It was a disappointing afternoon. Our pace in quali didn't translate to the race, so it was tough," Piastri said.<\/p>\n

"I think yesterday was a very good performance. From the team, I think today was probably more back to reality.<\/p>\n

"Tricky afternoon, we need to understand why, because it did cool down a bit, which we liked, but we didn't have enough pace. So, we need to have a look at why we weren't quick enough today.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Max Verstappen dominated the race. The two-time defending champion was fastest in each of the three practice sessions, took pole position, led every lap and set the fastest lap.<\/p>\n

"It is a big pleasure to drive a car like this and it showed on a day like this," Verstappen said. "Hopefully we can keep it up throughout the year."<\/p>\n

On the cool-down lap, Verstappen's race engineer told him it was a "masterclass".<\/p>\n

But the Dutchman warned against complacency.<\/p>\n

"We just have to focus on ourselves and try to keep on improving our car," he said. "Of course right now it all looks great, but you can't stand still in this world."<\/p>\n

\"Max<\/p>\n

Verstappen said before practice while the Red Bull cars were fast and reliable enough to win every single race, he figured "we will always have tracks where it doesn't work out exactly, bad luck in qualifying, mistakes, whatever".<\/p>\n

Nothing went wrong, at least not for Verstappen, this week.<\/p>\n

His 40th career win, including his third in Barcelona, leaves Verstappen one win behind the late Ayrton Senna's total of 41. He also seems well on course to matching Senna's three world titles.<\/p>\n

Verstappen set a Red Bull record with 39 wins last weekend at Monaco, breaking Sebastian Vettel's record of 38.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were second and third.<\/p>\n

\u2014 with AP<\/em><\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a sensational qualifying effort on Saturday evening, McLaren plunged back to reality at the Spanish Grand Prix. Lando Norris started third, and Oscar Piastri […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":304078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304085,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304075\/revisions\/304085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/304078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}