Piastri: A tight battle all the way to the end

Having started the Grand Prix on the front row with only the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc ahead, the Australian driver had high hopes of securing a sixth Grand Prix victory of the season and extending his lead in the Standings from Norris.

The race got off to a lukewarm start for Piastri, as he failed to get past Leclerc on the opening lap and fell more than two seconds behind the Ferrari driver before the first pitstop phase.

While he managed to close the gap to the leader by pitting for hard tyres one lap earlier, he was unable to threaten for the lead of the 70-lap event.

Leclerc eventually fell by the wayside as his SF-25 encountered chassis-related issues, but Piastri still didn't have the lead as his teammate had opted for a one-stop strategy to the former's two.

The Aussie racer closed within DRS range of Norris with six laps remaining, and dived down the inside of his fellow McLaren driver into Turn 1 on the penultimate lap but it didn't quite work out. Norris held on to win the Hungarian Grand Prix, less than seven tenths of a second ahead of Piastri.

Nevertheless the second-placed driver wasn't as downbeat as one might expect.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race, Piastri defended his and his team's choice to go for the two-stop strategy as supposed to the one-stop, which in hindsight was superior.

He said: "Going into the race we thought a two-stop was the best thing to do, and in clean air potentially it still was.

"Having a two-stop race in clean air vs dirty air is a different story. It’s very easy now to say a one-stop was the way to go but one second different and the answer would be very different," stated Piastri.

The 24 year old was still pleased with his Sunday performance despite losing out to his rival in the Drivers' Championship, and is in good spirits heading into the summer break.

He continued: "Some things to analyse with the team but overall I thought it was a good day.

"The pace has been very good. My execution of races has been good as well and it’s going to be a tight battle all the way to the end," concluded Piastri.

The gap at the head of the Drivers' Standings has now closed to just nine points, with Piastri on 284 points to Norris' 275.