05/08/2025 06:30
Oscar Piastri has conceded it was "a bit painful" to stomach losing
to Lando Norris by such a fine margin in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Australian crossed the Hungaroring finish line just under
seven-tenths of a second after his McLaren team-mate, seeing his F1
drivers' championship advantage cut to a mere nine points as a
result. The fact that Norris utilised the alternate one-stop
strategy to recover from fifth place at the end of the first lap to
triumph is a bitter pill for Piastri, who stayed on the
conventional two-stopper, to swallow. Despite eradicating the
British driver's advantage after pitting for the second time, as
they converged on track, he was unable to pass, something that
makes it all the more "difficult" to accept for the 24-year-old.
When asked for his overriding emotion after securing his 12th
podium in the opening 14 rounds of the campaign, Piastri
acknowledged how "entertaining the race was despite coming up
short. "Mixed, I would say," the eight-time grand prix winner
replied to media, including RacingNews365 . "Whenever you lose a
race by such a little amount, it's obviously a bit painful, but I
mean, I'm sure it was entertaining from the outside. It was
entertaining from the inside as well. "So, you know, pretty fun
race, all things considered. But, obviously, when you're on the
losing side of that battle, it's a little bit difficult." Having
lost out to a superior strategy employed by his team for his
team-mate, Piastri maintained it would be "easy to say in
hindsight" what the correct course of action would have been.
Focusing on the positives of the grand prix, he highlighted how he
was able to get past the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who was
battling issues, which helped him hold on to second place. "But,
yeah, we tried our best, I think, and, you know, we got ahead of
Charles," the former F2 and F3 champion added. "I don't know what
happened to him in the last stint, but yeah, some things to look
back on, whether we should have done something a bit different in
terms of strategy, but very easy to say in hindsight."
