Oscar Piastri has conceded he was relieved it was the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix as he combated a “big” downforce loss from damage at the start to his McLaren.
Piastri made a slower start than Carlos Sainz and the Spaniard was up the McLaren’s inside into Turn 1, but the Australian managed to hold second round the outside.
However, the duo who clashed in Miami earlier this month sustained a light tap on the exit, which saw Sainz sustain a puncture and be unable to steer through Casino.
But an incident involving Sergio Perez and the Haas drivers down Beau Rivage resulted in a red flag that enabled Sainz to be reinstated to third on the standing restart.
McLaren would capitalise on the stoppage to replace Piastri’s right-hand sidepod, but he would have to complete the remaining laps with damage to his MCL38’s floor.
Piastri was told the glancing blow provided a substantial performance hit and made him grateful that overtaking is nigh-on impossible around the Monte Carlo streets.
“I definitely felt the touch at Turn 1 and at that part of the car, it’s such a sensitive part,” Piastri said.
“The team told me how much downforce I was losing before we tried to fix it and it was a pretty big number.
“I don’t know what we managed to get it down to but yeah, obviously the length of the red flag helped us out quite a lot there.
“And being in Monaco, it’s probably the one track where having damage doesn’t hurt you as much. So, yeah, it was a very, very small touch.
“But with these cars, especially with the floor being so sensitive to the downforce it generates, it can ruin your race very easily.
“So, yeah, I was very happy we could try and fix it.”
Piastri revealed he understand the extent of his damage in the final laps as he dropped back eight seconds from Charles Leclerc and was under pressure from Sainz.
“Yeah, I mean, it was OK. I think for the first half of the race, it was impossible to tell what the penalty of that was,” Piastri said regarding the damage.
“I think towards the end, probably a combination of trying to keep the pace of the race reasonably quick, plus the floor, yeah, just struggled a little bit towards the end.
“But overall pretty happy with it. And yeah, the last 10 laps or so, I was pretty happy we were in Monaco.”
However, Piastri held on to claim second on his second Monaco outing in F1 and his maiden rostrum appearance this season, with team-mate Lando Norris in fourth.
“I’m very, very happy,” he expressed. “Yeah, third podium in F1 certainly doesn’t get old.
“So, no, very happy to have it here in Monaco, especially, you know, if there’s one podium apart from your home podium that you want to stand on, it’s probably here.
“So, very, very pleased for the whole team. I think especially for our side of the garage.
“It’s been a promising few weekends now and nice to finally get a good result out of it. So very, very happy.”
Piastri denied that he could have done more to steal an emotional home win from Leclerc’s grasp, citing how
a little look into Portier was the closest that he could get.
“I had an attempt about 10 or 15 laps in, into Turn 8,” he recalled. “We were going pretty slow. I think at one point we were going slower than Formula 2.
“You know, when you’re going that slow, you’ve got a fair few options.
“But I kind of knew that once I showed my hand in where I was going to try and overtake, that he would probably be wise to it from there.
“So I managed to get very close in Turn 7, one lap. I tried to show the nose in Turn 8 but he reacted just quick enough, so after that point, I knew I was going to be very limited on options.”
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