Piastri takes points after recovery in 'pretty nuts' conditions

Oscar Piastri had an appropriately rollercoaster afternoon at the undulating Zandvoort circuit in Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, the Australian scoring two points for finishing in ninth place in a "crazy" race of changeable conditions, tyre gambles and a red-flag stoppage.

The McLaren driver qualified eighth on Saturday, a result he admitted to being "pretty pissed off" about after a compromised preparation to his first F1® visit to the seaside circuit. Piastri crashed in Friday practice and lost valuable dry-weather track time, which bit him in the final stages of qualifying and left him on the fourth row, six places and eight-tenths of a second behind McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

Piastri was one of nine drivers not to pit for intermediate tyres when rain pelted the circuit before the completion of the first of 72 laps on Sunday, and looked set to climb up the order when he finally pitted on lap 15 just as a safety car was called when Logan Sargeant (Williams) crashed out, the bad timing leaving Piastri in 16th place and with a mountain of work to do.

While he used the speed of the MCL60 to showcase his aggression in combat – Piastri made robust moves past Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) soon after the race resumed – the early stop saw him fighting to get back to where he started for the remainder of the race, leaving him in a pragmatic mood afterwards.

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"What a day," Piastri said after he finished two places and three seconds behind Norris at the chequered flag.

"Not our best afternoon, but it could have been a lot worse and it was looking a lot worse at one point.

"Maybe there were a few opportunities we could have done a bit more with, but to have both cars in the points and in one piece was a bit more than what some other people can say."

Piastri's decisive overtaking caught the eye after his first pit stop left him out of position relative to the pace of his McLaren, and while he enjoyed the chance to get his elbows out and attack, he felt a greater reward for that effort would have made it more enjoyable.

"When you've got nothing to lose in conditions like that it's certainly a bit of fun – but it's more fun when you finish a bit higher up!," he said.

"In the end, staying out on slicks … it could have been a bit better if we had have boxed on lap one, but we were a lot better off than some other people."

The race – which swung wildly from dry to wet to dry and then so wet that a red flag preceded a 45-minute delay before the final six laps were run at racing speed – was in keeping with Piastri's action-packed rookie season, where straightforward race weekends have been more the exception than the rule.

"We've not had a fully dry weekend since Monaco, which was round six," he said.

"It's been a bit of a baptism of fire from that aspect of things, we've had three or four crazy races now. In 13 F1 races, I feel like I've had three that have been pretty nuts – Monaco, Melbourne and here."

Oscar's Dutch Grand Prix by the numbers

• Qualified: 8th
• Race: 9th
• Fastest lap: 1min 14.299secs (5th), lap 54
• Points this event: 2
• Points this season: 36 (12th in world championship)