Rookie Oscar Piastri enjoyed a solid home race last weekend at the Albert Park Circuit, as the McLaren driver finished eighth at the Australian Grand Prix.
Given how badly qualifying went for the 21-year-old, a top 10 finish certainly wasn’t what Piastri was expecting; however, the Aussie capitalised on eight drivers retiring.
Piastri, who turns 22 on Thursday, labelled the race as “crazy”, with him having finished eighth despite having started 16th.
“It was a crazy race,” said Piastri. “We kept ourselves out of trouble and ended up in the points. It was great. A good day for us.”
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What made the points finish at his home race even sweeter was that the Woking-based team are fully aware that their car isn’t great at the moment.
McLaren have endured a tough start to the 2023 F1 season; however, they now find themselves in fifth in the Constructors’ Championship.
“To get this amount of points this early in the year, with the car that we’ve got at the moment, is a great result and obviously something we need,” said Piastri.
“Definitely happy to get my first points on the board, especially here at home.
“It’s obviously not been a great first two races for the whole team, for largely things out of our control. Some more things out of our control went right today [and] it was nice to be on the good end of things going wrong.”
As happy as he was with the points in Melbourne, Piastri admitted that the team still have “some learning to do”.
The Australian explained that the team are very much aware of their current top speed issues, whilst the rookie is also wanting to personally get better at using “the battery most effectively to overtake”.
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“A positive day but definitely some learning to do,” he said.
“We obviously know we’re quite slow on the straights at the moment, which is something we’re looking to address, but even with the fourth DRS zone it’s still difficult to overtake here.
“For me, some things I can work on [and] there’s still some learnings to do on how to use the battery most effectively to overtake.”