‘Turns out we’re alright once we start’ – Oscar Piastri reacts to bittersweet podium in Japanese GP
Oscar Piastri was left with blended feelings after securing his first podium end of the season, questioning what might have been had he not misplaced out to winner Kimi Antonelli below Safety Car situations in Japan.
The Australian was the final of the grid’s 22 drivers to begin a Grand Prix in 2026, having crashed out on a reconnaissance lap in Australia and later struggling an electrical issue that dominated him out of the Chinese Grand Prix.
I’ve subsequently made the a lot of the probability to have a clear weekend on the Suzuka Circuit and emerged by from P3 to take the lead of the race on the opening lap. Despite important strain from Mercedes’ George Russell, Piastri managed to keep the benefit till he boxed for contemporary tires.
Just just a few laps later, the Safety Car was deployed to recuperate the damaged Haas of Ollie Bearmangifting Antonelli a faster pit cease after he had improved again up the order. Piastri was unable to problem for the lead once more and finally settled for P2, which was nonetheless an achievement following his first two rounds.
“Turns out we’re alright once we start,” he summarized. “It would have been actually attention-grabbing to see what would have occurred with out the Safety Car.
“I could keep George behind and just before the stops we were actually pulling away a little bit again. A shame that we never got to see what would have happened but I think for us at this point to be disappointed about finishing second is a pretty good place to be.”
His greatest probability to reclaim first place on monitor got here on the restart, however the superior tempo of the mercedes noticed him slowly fall additional behind Antonelli, who finally took the checked flag 13.722s forward of Piastri.
However, his spectacular getaway at lights out and battle with Russell meant a significant enchancment for the Woking outfit and resulted in a stable haul of factors, with Piastri’s sixth place in the China Sprint his solely different rating.
Reflecting on the end result, he mentioned: “Massive thanks to the staff, I believe we did a reasonably good job of executing with what we had.
“Clearly we still need to find a bit of performance but we took every opportunity we had today.”