Piastri: It’s nice in some ways to be disappointed

Just in his tenth F1 race, Oscar Piastri came of age, qualifying third for the race at Silverstone, and drove a clean and impressive race, matching the pace of his highly-rated teammate Lando Norris all the time as McLaren asked their drivers not to fight each other.

A podium was on the cards for Piastri, that is until Kevin Magnussen's Haas parked on the side of the track, its Ferrari power unit in flames, bringing out a Safety Car just after the #81 McLaren pitted. That meant Lewis Hamilton who hadn't pitted benefitted and took the final podium position.

However, Piastri was encouraged that McLaren's pace was real, the team out of nowhere emerging as the second-fastest team behind Red Bull a position Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Mercedes took turns occupying.

"Most pleasing aspect was that we achieved these results on merit," Piastri told Sky Sports F1 after the race. "I think it’s one thing to get these results by lucky incident but we were genuinely the second-quickest team today which was a very happy surprise.

"We were on my side unlucky with the Safety Car timing with Lewis getting a free pit stop but it’s nice in some ways to be disappointed with a fourth place considering where we were at the start of the year," he added.

McLaren have brought a major upgrade to their MCL60 for the race in Austria, on Norris' car only, and they worked straight away, and with Piastri given the upgrades in Silverstone, he put them to good used confirming the progress the team has done.

Piastri hailed his team: "Massive credit to the team, clearly the upgrades we’ve brought to the car are working an absolute treat. Exciting times for the future and it’s nice to be back towards the front.

"At some tracks we will still have some weaknesses," he warned. "We still have some very clear strengths, I think Silverstone is good for our car but we thought Austria might be an outlier and we’ve been even stronger here. It’s nice to have that performance two races in a row and we’ll be pushing to try and keep that going forwards.

"It’s a very, very happy moment (for McLaren). Putting trophies aside, to have so many points for the team is a fantastic result. It’s nice to be back at the front. We don’t want to be finishing fifth in the constructors’, eventually we want to try and challenge the top.

"We still have a way to go to challenge the next few teams but anything is possible if we keep having weekends like this," the 22-year-old concluded.

Piastri has been poached by McLaren from Alpine in 2022, after a controversial legal fight between both teams, and with how things have transpired so far, it clearly has been an inspired decision for both the Aussie and the Woking squad.