Oscar Piastri admits there were stressful periods in the sprint as he took his first victory at the Qatar Grand Prix, thanking the timing of Safety Cars for helping him keep Max Verstappen at bay.
Saturday’s earlier sprint shootout had seen Piastri lead a McLaren one-two, but the pair — and Verstappen — were all attacked by drivers starting on soft tires while the top three all chose mediums. With George Russell taking the lead for a spell, Piastri said he feared the wrong tire choice had been made at one stage but then felt the race coming back towards him.
“Very happy. I like sprint Saturdays apparently!” Piastri said. “It’s been a really good day. Obviously started well in the sprint shootout, and a pretty crazy sprint this evening. I’m happy to come out on top, and also I think it was really exciting for everyone to watch as well with the soft guys at the start. I thought I was in a lot of trouble with how much pace they had, but they dropped off just as quickly, so very, very happy.
“I think at the start it was a bit difficult to judge with the safety car which wasn’t helping the medium tire at all because it would cool down way too much. It was when Carlos was behind me and tried to overtake, after that they dropped back very quickly and from one lap to the next George lost a lot of pace.
“That’s when I knew I was in a good rhythm. It was just how quickly Max was going to come through and how quickly Lando (Norris) was going to come through as well. It was stressful at times but glad we could see it out.”
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Piastri admitted he had already worked out Russell in the lead was not his biggest threat but was still fearing a fight back from Verstappen before a late interruption bought him some breathing space.
“It was just before the last safety car really,” he said. “That last safety car was pretty nice for me, I’ll be honest! I knew that I had to try and get as much of a gap while Max was behind George as quickly as I could, [and] I managed to get out enough, and then the pace at the end was also pretty good, too. I think it was about ten laps to go, or eight laps to go, at that point I thought it might be a tough ask at the end, so I’m thanking the safety car drivers today.”
After securing his first win, Piastri says there were good lessons for Sunday’s grand prix when he will try to fight through from sixth on the grid after losing a higher starting position due to track limits violations in qualifying.
“I think we learned a lot,” he said. “I think the soft at the start was obviously extremely strong and dropped off. Everyone’s tires stayed together so that was a bonus. It was more or less as we expected. The wind dropped a bit, and with so many safety cars it gave you a lot of restarts and different tire temperatures and stuff. Tomorrow is obviously going to be a very different kind of race, but a lot of interesting things to learn.”