Oscar Piastri has explained why he thanked the safety car after his first Formula 1 victory. A duel with Carlos Sainz was also crucial.
“Apparently I like sprint Saturdays,” laughs Oscar Piastri after the sprint at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix. After the rookie had already finished second in the sprint in Spa, he grabbed his first Formula 1 victory at the Losail International Circuit.
“I’m very happy,” the Australian cheers and emphasizes: “It was a really good day. He started very well in the sprint shootout, and it was a pretty crazy sprint in the evening. I’m happy that I won, and I think it was also very exciting for everyone to watch.”
Piastri secured first place on the grid in the shootout ahead of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen. But the two fell behind at the start because – like Piastri – they started on the medium tires and George Russell moved up from P4 to P2 on the softs.
“I think I probably got off a little better than Lando and Max,” said Piastri, who was initially able to keep the lead. However, he admits: “With the guys who started on soft, I thought I was in big trouble because they had so much pace.”
“But they fell away just as quickly,” reports Piastri, who even had to hand over the lead to Russell at one point. “At the beginning it was a bit difficult to judge with the safety cars [welche Reifen besser sind]”, reveals Piastri.
Why the Sainz duel was so important
“The [Safety-Car zu Beginn] “It didn’t help the medium tire at all because it cooled down far too much,” he explains. Russell Piastri was able to overtake after the first of three safety car phases, which is why he was “a bit nervous” for a short time.
“When George came by, I thought I was in big trouble because I tried to hold on to him on the outside, but it seemed like he had twice as much grip,” reports the rookie, who initially had to let the Mercedes go.
“That was difficult,” he admits and explains that afterwards it was “pretty important for me to stay in front of the Ferrari in Turn 1. If I had fallen behind, I would have had some difficulties. So that was a very difficult one important moment in the race.”
At the restart after the second safety car phase, Carlos Sainz, also on soft tires, was already next to Piastri in Turn 1, but the Australian was able to defend his position. According to his own statement, it was a key moment because “afterwards [die Ferraris] fell behind very quickly.”
On “Sky” he emphasizes: “I obviously assumed that the guys on Soft would have problems. But I wanted to make sure that I didn’t end up like Max or Lando and have to overtake three instead of one guy. So I think it’s very It was important to stay in front of the Ferrari.”
That’s why the last safety car helped Piastri
“From one round to the next, George also lost [vor mir] a lot of pace. I knew then that I was in a good rhythm. It was just a question of how quickly Max and Lando would get through it [das Feld] come. “It was a bit stressful at times,” said Piastri.
Because while he was able to overtake Russell and take back the lead, behind him his teammate and Verstappen were also working their way back forward. “To be honest: whenever you have Max behind you, you don’t necessarily have the greatest confidence,” grins Piastri.
When asked when he realized that Verstappen and not Russell would be his main opponent in the final phase, he replied: “That was only right before the last safety car, which to be honest was pretty good for me!”
“I knew that I had to try to create as big a gap as possible as quickly as possible while Max was behind George. I was able to get enough out of that and the pace at the end was pretty good too,” reports the Australian.
His advantage was that Verstappen was still behind Russell at the third and final restart. “But with ten or eight laps to go I thought it might be tough until the end. So I’d like to thank the safety car drivers this evening,” he laughs.
“At that point [als Verstappen Russell überholte] There were only two or three laps left, so I gave it full throttle,” reports Piastri, who ultimately finished 1.8 seconds ahead of Verstappen and was able to celebrate his first Formula 1 victory – at least in a sprint.
Sunday will be “a completely different race” for Piastri
He will have a harder time in the main race on Sunday because he will only start from P6. When asked what he learned in the sprint for Sunday, he replied: “I think we learned a lot. The soft was of course extremely strong at the start, but then fell away.”
“But it was more or less as expected. The wind died down a bit, and with so many safety cars there were a lot of restarts and different tire temperatures and things like that. Tomorrow, of course, it will be a completely different race,” he knows.
“But we can [aus dem Sprint] learn a lot of interesting things,” Piastri is sure. Team boss Andrea Stella praises Sky: “Both drivers were absolutely excellent today. It wasn’t so easy to keep your nerve on the soft tires.”
“We expected in a way that we could have problems for a few laps if some started on soft. We had to stay calm because we could already see in the afternoon that the soft tires would get quite a bit of grain.”
“So we were hoping that it would go our way. Oscar stayed very calm, it was a very controlled race. His speed in the sprint shootout was great. An excellent Saturday – not just Oscar, but also for Lando and McLaren as a whole “, says Stella.
Norris rounded off the strong McLaren Saturday with a third place in the sprint. But he will have an even harder time than his teammate on Sunday because he will only start the main race from tenth place.