The Austrian Grand Prix has been a mixed bag for Oscar Piastri who, after a P2 finish in Saturday’s Sprint Race ahead of his teammate Lando Norris, managed to set a lap time worthy of P3 in Grand Prix qualifying. However, his lap time was deleted due to a track limits infringement that dropped him to P7.
He was fortunate to avoid a puncture at the start as he made contact with Charles Leclerc’s front wing at turn 1. Three corners later, he got pushed off by Sergio Pérez into the gravel but managed to carry on without losing a spot as the Ferrari driver boxed with damage.
The 23-year-old overtook Pérez, Hamilton and Sainz on track, then profiting from Verstappen and Norris coming together to finish less than 2s from George Russell for the victory.
Piastri expressed his “hurt” over the lost opportunity for what would’ve been his first Formula 1 race win.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of what-ifs and maybes. Yeah, obviously starting from yesterday, but yeah.
“I know it’s only my fourth podium in F1, but, yeah, so close to a win, it hurts a little bit, but really good points. I think the second half of the race we were coming on pretty strong, and happy with another podium. Just when it’s that close, you can’t help but hurt a little bit.
“I haven’t seen what happened with Lando and Max, but clearly it was pretty even up the front, and yeah, I think we’re well and truly in the mix.”
The Australian driver went on to express his frustrations over the decision to delete his qualifying lap time as it looked extremely marginal.
“Yeah, definitely, I mean, I was pretty upset yesterday that, you know, there are so many corners, we’ve made changes on the track here to get rid of the track limits issue.
“But this one corner, for some reason, we moved the white line, but not enough. But at the end of the day, I went slightly outside and that’s the mistake on me, or that’s what it was.
“But after seeing the evidence on what I got my lap deleted for coming from a chopper cam that was only on me, in pretty questionable resolution, that stung quite a lot.
“So I had a bit of fire in me going into the race. So I think some of my overtakes probably came from a bit further back than maybe they would have otherwise.”
At the start of the race, Piastri on the outside and Pérez on the inside sandwiched Charles Leclerc at turn 1 and caused him to pit early with a broken front wing.
Piastri explained the incident from his point of view.
“Yeah, I didn’t get the best of starts, but saw a bit of an opening on the outside and then, yeah, went nice and late on the brakes.
“I couldn’t really see where Checo went on the inside, but I didn’t think he was really that far up alongside Charles, but obviously all three of us kind of met at the apex.
“So, yeah, quite fortunate for myself. I think there was a little bit of damage, but I don’t think anything major. Had a bit more contact with Checo again a bit later in the lap. So, yeah, it was an eventful race.”
Describing the last few laps of the race, he explains just how hard he was pushing.
“Yeah, I mean, I was more or less trying to do a similar thing, I guess, trying to get back to the podium.
“You know, I felt like that would have been a good result from where we started. And then, yeah, obviously when you’re in contention for a win, things change a little bit.
“In terms of what you need to do on track it’s exactly the same. You try and focus on what’s ahead and you’re just trying to drive as fast as possible especially with only five or six laps to go.
“So I tried my best. I think I went off a couple of times trying to catch George but I can’t say I didn’t try.“
