Piastri: First Sprint win sounds pretty cool

Sure it's not a Grand Prix victory, but it is the next best thing. And the manner in which Piastri did it was sensational, to say the least. Claiming pole in the early Sprint Shootout. From there he blitzed off the line, comfortably ahead of a chasing pack of cars on mediums, like his McLaren was, and others on Softs.

One of those, George Russell got past into the lead for a spell, until the Mercedes ran out of rubber and the Piastri's Pirellis switched on, as did all the medium-shod runners. Including Verstappen. Despite a couple of safety cars, and the restarts. Piastri was unflustered.

Even when the #1 car got into second place, Piastri was comfortable trading hot laps with the newly crowned F1 World Champion. Denying Verstappen winning his third F1 title in style. He had to settle for second. Piastri did the business, on the night, purely on merit.

In parc ferme, beaming from ear to ear the Australian told MC Nico Rosberg: "A very stressful race. When I saw all the soft [tyre] guys come through at the start I thought we were in a bit of trouble. But their tyres fell off pretty quickly, so that was good. Very happy!

"The Safety Cars were my friend today once Max got behind me but the pace was reasonable and in the race where you had to manage a lot, the tyres, cars on other compounds, we did a good job. When he got through to second I thought I was going to be in a bit of trouble, but the pace was good. First Sprint win sounds pretty cool."

In the team report later Piastri added: "Finally, congratulations to Max on his third Championship, it’s a remarkable achievement."

Cool indeed for Piastri who has more than lived up to the substantial hype that trailed him into F1. That he is doing business with McLaren rather than Alpine is also food for thought.

The MCL60 is proving to be a great piece of kit, on which the Woking built upgrades actually make the car faster and these days only second to Red Bull, but only their #1 car.

But not so cool for Norris who is becoming F1's nearly man. A win still eludes him while his rookie teammate has beaten him to the milestone on a weekend in which the Englishman has generally been quicker, but not at the right time.

Nevertheless, despite going backwards at the start. Gobbled up by the Ferrari duo and into the grips of the chasing midpack, Norris recovered well to take the final step of the podium.

He said afterwards: "First of all congrats to Oscar and Max. A tough race for me, just a bad start. It made everything a lot trickier but we fought back well, some fun racing and good overtakes all the way to the last lap. Tough. But another podium for us, so as a team it's been a mega day. Not the best of beginnings but a good ending."

For McLaren, also a healthy haul of points as they mount up the points and edge closer to Aston Martin for fourth place in the 2023 F1 Constructors' Championship. A major turnaround for Zak Brown's team, not only from last year to this but also from the start of the season, when things were far from ideal.