‘Pretty exciting’: Piastri relishing the fight despite near-miss
Matt Clayton
Monday, 29 July 2024
Oscar Piastri’s golden run continued at Spa, the Australian advancing to fourth in the drivers’ championship on a day where – eventually – a second win was within touching distance.
Oscar Piastri came within seven-tenths of a second of taking back to back wins – something no Australian driver has done in a decade – but said “really enjoyed” his drive to what looked to have been third place on Sunday in Belgium, which became second when George Russell (Mercedes) was disqualified after the race.
Starting from fifth on the grid, a Piastri push for victory came down to a superb start that saw him gain a place on lap one, and then a scintillating burst of laps when he inherited the lead before his second pit stop that vaulted him into podium contention.
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Piastri was crawling all over Hamilton for what was second as the chequered flag fell; hours after that battle turned out to be one for the win, the 23-year-old was keen to accentuate the positives after moving up a spot to fourth in the world championship standings.
“It was an exciting race, I’m sure it was a pretty exciting one to watch,” he said.
“It went down to the wire, I really enjoyed it.
“A difficult one and the dirty air was pretty unbelievable, how much of a difference it made. So a tricky one to manage, and with a lack of dry running on this surface it made the strategy a little bit open.”
With Sergio Perez failing to capitalise on a front-row start and finishing seventh, and with Red Bull Racing teammate Max Verstappen only able to recover to fourth after a 10-place grid penalty wiped out his pole position and saw him start 11th, Piastri (second) and teammate Lando Norris (fifth) were able to take another nine points out of Red Bull’s constructors’ championship lead, which has been slashed to just 42 points after McLaren outscored Red Bull for seventh time in the past eight races.
“I think that was a really good result for us, and I don’t think we could have done much more,” Piastri said.
“I think we’re in a good position performance-wise, we just need to make sure that I get the most out of it in qualifying.”
Piastri’s second pit stop – when he ran long into his pit box – was one of few mistakes, while needing two laps to clear Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc immediately afterwards provided costly in the wash-up.
“That’s the second or third time this year we’ve tried to run over the front jack, so I’ll try not to do that next time,” he mused.
“It took me a couple of laps to get past Charles and I really overheated the tyres doing that. Clearly the pace for George staying out there on one set of hards was the right thing to do.
“It’s been a really good couple of weeks for myself and the whole team. A lot of points, and we still made inroads on Red Bull today. That’s a really positive thing going into the break.”
Oscar’s Belgian Grand Prix by the numbers
- Qualified: 6th (started 5th after Verstappen 10-place grid penalty)
- Race: 2nd
- Fastest lap: 1min 45.840secs (3rd), lap 32
- Points this event: 18
- Points this season: 167 (4th in world championship)
