Oscar Piastri finished P2 after the sprint race in Austria, ahead of teammate Lando Norris after a successful fifth lap overtake at turn 6 as the Brit lost out to Max Verstappen.
Although he gained a place during the sprint, the Australian driver was left wanting more. Piastri thinks that he wasn’t able to maximise what the car could do as he didn’t have enough pace to push in the second half of the Sprint for what could have been a better result against Verstappen.
He also thought there could have been an opportunity to capitalise more on the quarrel between Norris and Verstappen but that didn’t quite happen for him. Despite that, Piastri is in good spirits, as it was a good points haul for the team.
“Yes, and no, I think yeah, obviously started one spot, finished one spot higher than I started.
“But yeah, just didn’t quite have the pace in the second half of that one and yeah, I thought Max and Lando were gonna pave the way for me to come through at one point, but not quite and yeah, some things to look out for this afternoon and for tomorrow’s race, but we’ll definitely take the points, a really good haul compared to the other teams around us.”
The 23-year-old successfully executed a major overtake during the fifth lap of the race. As Max Verstappen and teammate Lando Norris scraped in front, Piastri was able to pick up the pieces and passed the Brit who was out of position on the exit of turn 4 as Verstappen sent it down the inside.
He says there was an opportunity to overtake race leader Max Verstappen the lap after but wasn’t wasn’t able to maximise the pace at that moment. He also said that being patient paid off as he was able to capitalise on an opportunity for an overtake for P2.
“Yeah, I could see that they were battling quite hard and into turn four I saw the move was quite late and yeah, I knew that there’d be an opportunity on the exit. I was hoping I would get both but yeah, just bided my time and yeah, tried my best.
“I think I had probably one opportunity to try and get Max the lap after but yeah, just didn’t quite have the pace after that, so yeah, and that being patient in the start paid off a bit.”
