Oscar Piastri was pleased to get his Formula 1 points tally off the mark at his home race in Australia.
The Melbourne native benefitted from the two Alpines crashing at the second red flag restart and Carlos Sainz’s penalty to finish eighth at Albert Park.
Piastri’s result also makes him the third Australian to score points at his first race Down Under, after Mark Webber in 2003 and Daniel Ricciardo in 2012.
“Yeah, definitely happy to get my first points on the board, especially here at home,” he said post-race.
Also Read:
“It was a crazy race, I think it’s the first race where I’ve had three red flags, I think it’s probably most people’s first race like that. We kept ourselves out of trouble and ended up in the points, it’s great!”
After dramas led to somewhat lonely races in Bahrain and Jeddah, Piastri also benefitted from a long battle with Yuki Tsunoda on the fringes of the top 10.
“I think the first lap was pretty good, and then in the middle of the race I just got stuck behind Yuki a bit too long,” he explained.
“I just couldn’t really find a way past, then was trying a few different things with the battery to try and use it in the right place.
“There are some things that I can work on there, definitely, but I think once I got past the pace seemed to be pretty good.
“I think for me, there’s still some learning to do on how to use the battery most effectively to overtake others.”
With teammate Lando Norris also finishing sixth, the result meant McLaren jumped from P10 to P5 in the Constructors’ standings.
“Obviously it’s not been a great first two races for the whole team – largely things out of our control,” Piastri admitted.
“Some more things out of our control went right today, I guess, to get us into the points.
Double points in Melbourne. ? #AusGP ?? pic.twitter.com/MDcSGBXe1y
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) April 3, 2023
“But to get this amount of points this early in the year is obviously something we needed; to get points on the board.
“Of course, we’ve got some upgrades coming in Baku and later through the year.
“To get the points on the board with the car that we have at the moment is really good.
“So it was nice to be on the good end of other things going wrong with other people!”