Piastri’s high five before home highlight

Oscar Piastri will come to his home race at Albert Park inside the top five in the drivers’ standings for the first time in his career after a strong fourth-place finish in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Saturday night.

The McLaren driver, who started fifth after outqualifying teammate Lando Norris by 0.043 seconds in a tight Friday night Q3 in Jeddah, spent 20 frustrating laps behind Lewis Hamilton after the Mercedes driver, along with Norris, Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) and Zhou Guanyu (Sauber) were the only drivers not to pit under safety car conditions when Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) crashed heavily just six laps in.

Despite joking that he was now a “Mercedes rear wing expert” after the race, Piastri was content to bank 12 points for finishing fourth on a night where the podium finishers – Red Bull Racing duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez along with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – were out of reach.

“It was OK, I don’t think we could have done too much more,” Piastri said.

“It was a frustrating 20 laps stuck behind Lewis, but I think in the end that was the most we could have done. We didn’t have the pace of the cars ahead so all in all, pretty happy with that.”

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Piastri finished 13 seconds behind Leclerc in third, and three seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) in fifth after clearing the Spaniard with a robust pass into the first corner on lap two.

Hamilton’s belated pit stop on lap 36 allowed Piastri to run his own pace for the final 14 laps, but he felt the final sector of the track didn’t accentuate McLaren’s strengths around the remainder of the 27-turn layout.

“We just didn’t quite have enough speed, and I think we also struggled in the last corner,” he said.

“You put two long straights with that corner in the middle, and it’s not a very fun time for us. Definitely some things to try to work on for us, but that wasn’t a bad night’s work. P4 is the most we could have done, but we’ll keep pushing for more.

“We seem very close with Mercedes (but) Ferrari and Red Bull seem a step ahead.”

Piastri will head back to McLaren’s Woking headquarters in England to prepare for the next two races in Australia and Japan before journeying to Melbourne next weekend for his second home Grand Prix, an event he described as being “pretty special”.

“We probably favoured ourselves here as being a very good track for us – Melbourne is a bit more low-speed content which is probably not the best for us at the moment so we’ll see,” Piastri said when asked about his prospects for Albert Park.

“I kind of joke that I became an F1 driver to get myself an extra week at home every year, they did the calendar nicely this year! It’s always nice to get back home and 10 minutes from where I grew up, it’s pretty special.”

Oscar's Saudi Arabia Grand Prix by the numbers

• Qualified: 5th
• Race: 4th
• Fastest lap: 1min 32.310secs (10th), lap 45
• Points this event: 12
• Points this season: 16 (5th in world championship)