Oscar Piastri labelled the Japanese Grand Prix as ‘one of his best weekends in Formula 1’ after claiming his first podium of the 2026 campaign.
The McLaren driver finished runner-up to Mercedes championship leader Kimi Antonelli at Suzuka on Sunday, having enjoyed a brilliant getaway from third on the grid.
That put him in the lead on lap one and it was only because of the lap 23 safety car following Oliver Bearman’s crash that he dropped to second, as Piastri had already pitted by that point whereas Antonelli could make a cheap tyre change.
It was a much-needed positive weekend for Piastri, who made his first grand prix start of 2026 having crashed out on the reconnaissance lap in Melbourne before his MCL40 failed to fire up at round two in Shanghai.
“This weekend was probably one of my best weekends in F1,” said fourth-year starter Piastri, who is now sixth in the championship having also taken sixth in the China sprint.
“I hit the ground running in practice, qualifying, we did a really good job of getting the car into the window I was happy with on Friday.
“In the race, yeah, there wasn’t anything more we could have done. We got a good start, the pace was good, I felt like I was strategic or smart with how I used the boost and how I managed that side of racing.
“Our strategy was good, we didn’t blink too early. Obviously, the safety car was a shame, but I think as race weekends go we couldn’t have done any better than that. So yeah, for me I’m very happy with the performance that I put in, very happy with the performance from the whole team.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
“Clearly, we’ve still got some, firstly, performance to find, but also Lando’s side of the garage was a pretty interrupted weekend with all the issues, and clearly the start of the season has not been easy for us with reliability, so we’ve got a long way to go.
“But yeah, I think we showed that if we get everything as good as we can get it, then we can cause a few headaches.”
Not only was it a much-needed positive for Piastri, but also McLaren in general, as it suffered a sluggish start to its title defence sitting behind Mercedes and Ferrari in the pecking order.
The Australian also expects the picture to remain the same, claiming that beating those cars at Suzuka was nothing more than a “pleasant surprise”, particularly as Lando Norris had reliability issues en route to fifth.
“We know from last year that even when you have the best car, you still need to operate it at an incredibly high level,” added Piastri.
“Today on our side we did a really good job of that. But I think it’s interesting to see when someone else has the fastest car that it’s not that straightforward and I think the fact that I could keep George [Russell] behind for so long was really encouraging.
“But we’re under no illusion. We did everything right this weekend and we still got beaten by 15 seconds, so we’ve got a pretty big gap to fill. I’m confident that we can get there, but yes, we’ve still got some work to do.”
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