Formula 1 championship leader Oscar Piastri said winning Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix was just what he needed after losing out to McLaren teammate Lando Norris over the previous two weekends. "It's been a great year and this weekend's been exactly the kind of weekend I was looking for," the Australian said after his fifth win in nine races.

F1 is in Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix and Oscar Piastri enjoyed a very successful Saturday as he beat teammate Lando Norris to seal pole in a McLaren front-row lockout.

The Australian extended his F1 championship lead on Monday with his fifth win of the season, but all the talk after the Spanish Grand Prix was the incident involving Max Verstappen and George Russell. In fact, both Piastri and McLaren teammate Lando Norris were asked for their thoughts on the controversy in a post-race interview.

Just as the race appeared settled after the final round of pit stops — kicked off by Verstappen’s third when he was just a few seconds adrift of Norris — a safety car period intervened, caused by Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes engine expiring smokily.

Oscar Piastri has his work cut out winning Formula One’s jewel in the crown and keeping his lead in the world drivers’ championship after qualifying third for Sunday night’s Monaco Grand Prix.

The Australian racer had to settle for third in qualifying, behind his team-mate Lando Norris who took his second pole position of the season

Oscar Piastri took pole for the Spanish Grand Prix after Lando Norris made too many mistakes on his final qualifying lap, though his response was rather different to usual

His FP1 time was underwhelming, but the Australian had been trialling a new rear wing design, the fluorescent yellow flow-viz oil giving away the experiment. Back on the same spec as Norris for the evening session, he rocketed to top spot.