Oscar Piastri finished third in today’s Monaco GP, after a slightly disappointing qualifying that saw him start from third. He had to fend off Max Verstappen into the first turn, but that pretty much was the podium secured. He did have a few slides, especially through Saint Devote, but that didn’t cause any trouble eventually.
Expected outcome
Piastri wasn’t to surprised by how the race turned out, even with the mandatory additional pit stop.
“Yeah, [it went] pretty much exactly how I expected. Yeah, I think there was a lot of action behind. So maybe that was a bit different.
“But from where I was sat, it did pan out pretty much how I thought. I mean, it definitely made the pace of the race a bit higher, certainly compared to last year. So from the cockpit, you know, it was a little bit more intense.
“We’re still not pushing flat out, but it just made certain points of the race a bit more tense.”
Additional stop not the solution
When asked about the mandatory two-stop race, Piastri wasn’t sure this was the solution to ‘fix’ the Monaco GP.
“It definitely made it a bit more tense at a few points,” Piastri explains. “You know, you had to push more at certain points to kind of recover the safety car windows to other cars around you, or put yourself outside of someone else’s safety car window.
“So there was some strategic elements involved, yes, but ultimately at the front, I don’t think it changed a whole lot.”
Piastri also addressed the possible issue of a late red flag throwing a spanner in the works and perhaps deliver an undeserving winner.
“It would have been quite a different story if there was a red flag with five laps to go and Max would have won.
“So I’m sure if we keep, you know, this going in the future, eventually a result like that will happen at some point, which is that what we want to see? I don’t know.
“But I don’t think at the front it changed a huge amount this weekend.”
Third highest possible
After a tricky Friday and a slightly underwhelming qualifying Piastri felt good in his car in today’s Monaco GP.
“Everything felt okay,” the championship leader explained. “But you’re not really pushing it to the limit in the race. And I was pretty happy with it in qualifying.”
“So I think we got there eventually, it was more just struggling to get into a rhythm before qualifying.
“And around here, you pay the price for not having that clean run into qualy. So yeah, that’s where I think our weekend got away from us a little bit.
“But I think the pace was still good, just trying to get everything out of it. Every single lap was tough yesterday. And today we tried a few things to get higher than third, but it didn’t work.”
One of those things was an undercut attempt on Charles Leclerc with their first pit stop, but a slow stop made sure it didn’t materialise. Piastri himself however thought it wasn’t going to be successful either way.
“We were too far back. I think we tried to make something happen, but I don’t think it was ever going to change our result.”
