Oscar Piastri says the success of Max Verstappen’s championship last year proves how important it is to harness early racial opportunities, following China’s Grand Prix victory.
Verstappen won seven of their first 10 races last season, but was under pressure later this year as both McLaren and Ferrari were closed at Red Bull and the Dutchman won twice in the remaining 14 rounds. Piastri says he won the first victory of the season in China in an impressive style and doesn’t overly focus on the title photo, but he knows how important an early victory is.
“It’s very, very, very quickly, obviously, but I think we need to maximize the car that has all the races, regardless of how short or long the championship is,” Piastri said. “I think last year, Verstappen thought he was able to win the championship by using the car he had in the first part of the year.
“I think it’s important right now, because someone is never aware of finding a certain speed with an upgrade or trying to find something in the way the car operates. There’s a pretty good margin there.
“So you’d obviously want to capitalize as much as you can, but I certainly don’t think about the championship. It’s a lot of cliché. That’s for a reason.
Piastri sees his third career victory as a particularly strong weekend outcome after finishing second in the sprint. Because he believes that both he and McLaren have found a way to exploit the pace of the car after their early challenges in Shanghai.
“It’s very satisfying. Obviously, it’s always a pretty good day when you cross the line first. That’s obvious, but for me, I think this is the most satisfying thing – not just race, but on the weekend – for me,” he said.
“I think the two wins I had before were very different and this was the most complete. So I’m very pleased with the efforts of the whole team this weekend. I think we started with a fast but rather tricky car at times, and I think it’s a good job to try and tackle it.