Oscar Piastri told he gained a ‘massive psychological’ advantage over Lando Norris at the Dutch Grand Prix

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Oscar Piastri will start Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix from pole position after a thrilling qualifying session.

Throughout the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, Lando Norris appeared to be the McLaren driver on top.

He topped all three practice sessions and set a lap record in the early parts of qualifying.

However, it’s the drivers’ championship leader Oscar Piastri, who will start from the front of the grid on Sunday.

Piastri now holds the Zandvoort lap record, although his lead over Norris in Q3 was only 12 milliseconds.

Only nine points separate the two McLaren drivers in the championship, and the start of Sunday’s race could be crucial to deciding who stands on the top step of the podium.

Both drivers commented after qualifying that they got ‘terrible’ starts at last year’s race, but Karun Chandhok believes Piastri has dealt a psychological blow to Norris with one qualifying moment in particular.

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Oscar Piastri enjoyed ‘psychological gain’ over Lando Norris during Dutch Grand Prix qualifying

Chandhok was commentating on the session for Sky Sports F1 (30/8 2:53 pm) and when Piastri put his car on provisional pole position, he said: “That’s a big statement from Piastri to recover that, and it all came in the first sector.

“All through the weekend, we’ve been saying he’s a tenth down in sector one, he’s a tenth down in sector one.

“That’s the first time Piastri has been a little bit quicker than Norris in sector one.

“And that for me is a massive psychological gain for Piastri. But this is where we’ll see how those drivers react to this psychological gain.

“It’s open at McLaren! We heard James [Vowles, Williams team principal] saying earlier that they’re giving both drivers a fair chance.

“They will have the opportunity now to look at the data, and maybe even some video of each other’s first sectors to see where they were in a different position, did they take a different line.

“They get an opportunity to see where the pluses and minuses were against each other, and then go again to try and execute it.”

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Oscar Piastri addresses McLaren split strategies for the Dutch Grand Prix

Norris admitted he ran out of luck during qualifying, when the changing wind direction potentially cost him pole position.

However, in recent races, Norris has been slightly more fortunate than his teammate, including in Hungary when a poor start led to a gamble on strategy that eventually won him the race.

Speaking in his official post-qualifying media session, Piastri said: “We’re both trying to beat each other every weekend, there are a few variables in there you can mix up, so let’s see what happens tomorrow.”

Piastri then went on to talk about how he’s kept his cool in such a title battle with his teammate and explained: “You just keep chipping away at it, that’s one of the nice things about having this practice, is you’ve got time to work on it.

“I just improved the parts where I was already not bad and made up the difference that way. There are still some things to try and improve and work on, but overall I’m very happy.”

It will be fascinating to see whether either driver will crumble as the team progresses, but Piastri’s almost unexpected pole position on Saturday will do him a world of good.