McLaren driver Oscar Piastri revealed his puncture during the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix ‘ironically’ helped him get ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps.
The Australian was keen to recover from the misery of being punted out of Saturday’s Sprint Race by teammate Lando Norris, costing the Woking-based squad eight points.
On race day, the MCL40 was once again a tricky car to negotiate around the Marina Bay Circuit, but Norris and Piastri avoided trouble to take a double-points finish.
Piastri suffered a slow puncture earlier in the race, which forced an unplanned tyre stop, and after that, suffered a slow release of his front-right in the next stop.
But shrugging off these obstacles, Piastri bore down on Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps, the Brit having opted to stay out during a VSC, which left him vulnerable as his rubber degraded.
Piastri duly overtook the Ferrari driver to finish P5, and speaking after the race, took pride from his own personal performance.
“I feel like personally, I did a really good job,” he said. “Obviously, the puncture was a bit of a shame, but ironically I think it actually helped me get Lewis at the end, so it was a silver lining.”
After the collision yesterday between himself and teammate Lando Norris, the McLaren driver concluded that it left them at a pace disadvantage.
“It was definitely the most we could have done,” the #81 driver said.
“We didn’t have the pace to do anymore and he has a massive track record in this race.”
Piastri added: “It was tough.
“Once you get there, it doesn’t take much to overheat the tyres and you kind of get stuck at their pace. But with how quickly I was catching, I would have been disappointed if I didn’t get past.
“A bit of excitement which was good, because otherwise it was a pretty lonely race.”
Another tinge of irony is that Norris and Piastri finished fourth and fifth, the positions they ought to have finished in the day before had their intra-team collision not occurred.
It recovered the team’s weekend with all focus now on the US GP in two weeks.
READ MORE – Lando Norris hands McLaren ‘long way off’ verdict after ‘impossible’ Singapore problems
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