The Melbourne crowd went wild as Oscar Piastri overtook Yuki Tsunoda, pulling ahead of the Japanese driver’s Alpha Tauri as he rounded turn nine of the Albert Park circuit.
The move pushed the Piastri into 11th position just over halfway through the race, and in a fight for points in his first grand prix on home soil. No one, not least the 21-year-old Australian himself, could have anticipated the chaos that would help push him into the top 10.
Oscar Piastri finished eighth.Credit:Getty Images
It wasn’t quite like Steven Bradbury skating to gold as his opponents crashed out around him at the 2002 Winter Olympics, but Piastri’s ability to stay cool and steer clear of the carnage as eight drivers failed to finish served him well. In the end, a penalty, multiple collisions and a series of red flags lifted the young Australian to eighth position and his first championship points.
“It was a crazy race obviously. It was the first race I’ve had three red flags,” Piastri said. (A fourth red flag was called, but did not impact the race result.)
“[I’m] definitely happy to get my first points on the board, especially here at home.”
The Melburnian picked up four points, which means he will start the next race in Azerbaijan ranked 13th in the driver’s championship, between his two Alpine rivals.
“Some more things out of our control went right today, I guess, to get us into the points, but to get this amount of points this early in the year is a great result, and obviously something we need,” he said.
“We’ve obviously got some upgrades [to the car] coming in at Baku and later through the year.
“To get those points on the board with the car that we have at the moment I think is really important.”
Here’s how Piastri’s race unfolded.
The start
Piastri started 16th on the grid after failing to progress beyond the first stage of qualifying. He was on medium tyres and said he made “good” moves up the track. He pinched one spot early, and moved up to 14th when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc spun out of the race, and then into 13th when Alpine’s Esteban Ocon pitted.
Lap 9
A red flag – the first of the race – was called after gravel from the crash between Lance Stroll and Alex Albon was pushed on to the track on lap 9. By then, Piastri was in 10th position, just one spot behind teammate Lando Norris. Like the majority of the drivers on the grid, Piastri used the early return to the pits to his advantage, swapping to hard tyres. As the action resumed, Piastri was overtaken by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who pushed forward into sixth position.
Lap 15
Tsunoda bumped Piastri as he overtook him – though his car was unscathed. “It was a bit of a squeeze, but no harm done. We both live to see another day,” Piastri said later. The Australian dropped back into 10th position when Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, who started in 20th position after a horror qualifying session, overtook Piastri on turn nine from the outside.
Lap 26
Piastri slipped back to 12th, overtaken by Alpine’s Esetban Ocon, whose straight-line speed was too quick for the Australian. From there, Piastri was stuck behind Tsunoda. “I just couldn’t really find a way past,” he said.
Lap 30
When the hometown hero overtook Tsunoda the Melbourne crowd was in raptures. “Once I got past him, the pace seemed to be pretty good,” Piastri said. Tsunoda dropped off, and by lap 42 Piastri was running his own race in position 11 – with a 7.5-second gap ahead and behind him. At this point Verstappen was eight seconds clear at the front.
Lap 46
Piastri sped to his fastest time around the track, clocking a time of 1:21.335.
Lap 56
The safety car came out after Kevin Magnussen lost a tyre, sending debris onto the track. Piastri went into the pit to fight for a spot in the top 10, swapping out his hard tyres for soft. Moments after he left the track, though, a second red flag was called, and the rest of the drivers were brought back into the pit.
All 16 remaining cars restarted on soft tyres, in what was effectively a 10.5-kilometre sprint race.
Piastri resumed in 11th, but soon after another red flag halted the race to clean up another mess – caused by Sainz’s collision with Fernando Alonso, in third.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll also lost control, while Logan Sargeant (Williams) and Nyck de Vries (Alpha Tauri), were wiped out at turn three.
The finish
Stewards determined the final lap of the race would be resumed in the same order the cars had lined up on the grid for the previous restart, with the final lap of the race completed behind the safety car.
The dramatic finish meant Piastri crossed in ninth from the rolling start, but was promoted to eighth after Ferrari’s Sainz was handed a five-second penalty for his role in the crash on the penultimate lap.
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