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Never doubt the importance of a good night’s sleep, so says Oscar Piastri, after earning his first front-row start in Formula 1 by qualifying second for the Japanese Grand Prix.

The 22-year-old is the first McLaren rookie to qualify on the front row since Kevin Magnussen in 2014 and the first in Formula 1 since Lance Stroll in 2017. He becomes only the fifth Australian to qualify in the top two, following in the footsteps of his manager, Mark Webber.

Driving at the Suzuka International Racing Course for the first time in his fledging career, Oscar made it through to Q3 for the 10th time this season, finishing in second place with a lap of 1:29.458s.

“First time I’ve started on the front row for a while,” Oscar told F1TV. “It will be cool, there’s only one car ahead to overtake, so I’ll try and make that happen.

“I am very happy. To have both of us in the top three is nice. I think we made some good improvements overnight, and I think I made some good improvements too. Having a good night’s sleep to digest the circuit is always a nice thing. I wish the gap to Max was a bit smaller, that is the only thing. Apart from that, I think we are pretty happy.”

This weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix is Oscar’s first experience of the upgraded MCL60, the most significant update to his car since the British Grand Prix. Since taking on that first upgrade package, Oscar has scored four points finishes from six races (fourth, fifth, ninth and seventh), as well as second in the F1 Sprint at Spa.

“[The upgraded car] does everything a little bit better, I would say,” Oscar told Sky Sports F1. “The strengths and weaknesses are still quite similar, which we are trying to improve and work on. The most important thing at the moment is making ourselves quicker - however we can achieve that is good. The feeling of being at the top of the timesheets instead of the bottom is the biggest difference.

“I feel like I've made good progress through the weekend. We definitely found some pace overnight. The circuit is so different to Singapore, so it is difficult to compare [the cars], but the car feels good. It doesn’t feel massively different, but it feels good. I think we came [to Suzuka] knowing it would suit us a little bit better. The high-speed corners are where we’re strong, and the first sector is basically all high-speed corners.”

Lando finished directly behind Oscar in third, 0.035s off the Australian, for our joint-best qualifying result of the season. The British racer echoed his teammate’s comments on the much-improved MCL60, applauding the team's work to produce a car capable of challenging at the sharp end and turning our season around after a difficult start.

Lando is on a run of 11 consecutive top 10 starts and has scored points in all seven of the last seven races, including podiums in Great Britain, Hungary, and last time out in Singapore.

“I think the jumps we’ve made in terms of the positions were more than we were expecting,” he told Sky Sports F1. “I don’t think at any point this season we were saying, ‘Can we get close to qualifying on pole in certain places?’ Or ‘would we have a certain amount of podiums so early on in the season?’ It would have been a hard no at the beginning of the year.

“We were patient, we knew very early on in the year that we weren’t going to be great, but we knew some good things were coming. The position jumps we’ve had, to be quicker than Mercedes and Ferrari, from having a much worse car, has been so impressive.

“The team are doing an exceptional job, which is clear from how much we have improved, to be fighting for front rows, but it is deserved, everyone is working so hard. There have been a lot of changes in the last couple of years, and we are on the right trajectory, which is the main thing.”

Speaking specifically about this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, Lando felt that he’d squeezed everything out of his MCL60 in Q3.

“I think we were extracting the most out of the car,” he continued. “In the first half of the lap, I was a tenth and a half up - I think it was similar for Oscar - and when you are on the limit, you take a bit more out of the tyre early on and lose a bit at the end of the lap - it is all give and take. I think we are getting what we could have out of the car. It was good enough for P2 and P3, so a pretty good day for us.”

McLaren remain the most successful team in the history of the Japanese Grand Prix with eight wins, whilst James Hunt, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Mika Häkkinen all clinched F1 World Championships with McLaren in Japan.

Channelling the spirit of those stories from our illustrious past at the Japanese Grand Prix, Lando insisted that he was up for the fight in tomorrow’s Grand Prix.

“Some of the most amazing McLaren stories come here in Japan,” Norris said to F1TV. “We are, of course, hoping for a good result tomorrow. We want to continue that tradition, but it’s going to be difficult.

“Max is doing a very good job. Red Bull is doing a very good job. We will do our best to make their life difficult and have a good race tomorrow.

“We have two cars up there, and we can use that to our advantage and see what we can do.”

 

Anyone got a cheap flight to Japan?

— Nicole Piastri (@NicolePiastri) September 23, 2023

As Oscar celebrated the latest achievement in what is shaping up to be a remarkable rookie season, his mother, Nicole, was busy searching for flights to Japan, reaching out to X (formally know as Twitter) for recommendations.

And after qualifying, a delighted Zak Brown offered to fund Nicole’s journey as he praised her son’s performances.   

“I am very happy to buy her airline tickets, so if you can get here, Mrs Piastri, we want to see you tomorrow,” Zak told Sky Sports F1. “It has been a great year for [Oscar], he has done such a good job. There is so much camaraderie within the team. Long may it continue. It is going to get tough because these guys are racing each other hard.” Oscar and Lando will line up second and third, respectively, on tomorrow’s grid for the Japanese Grand Prix at 06:00 BST.