Oscar Piastri achieved at Silverstone his best result to date in Formula 1, but the McLaren charger admitted to feeling a bit bittersweet by his fourth-place finish that put him within 0.993s of the podium.
Piastri finished hot on the heels of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, but the Aussie's strong performance had seen him hold P3 for 30 laps.
Unfortunately, the McLaren driver was among those that lost out when the Safety Car was deployed just three laps later, having pitted just moments earlier.
Piastri was running McLaren's upgraded MCL60 at Silverstone, although he did not have the revised front wing and nose box mounted on the car of his teammate Lando Norris.
"Still a bit more to come too, which is exciting," Piastri said regarding McLaren's development.
"I’ve got the new front wing next weekend which Lando had, which is exciting, couple more other bits. So yeah, nice to know we’re fighting here, we still have a little bit more to come."
Both McLarens enjoyed a strong launch off the line when the lights went off, with Norris seizing the lead from poleman Max Verstappen into Abbey.
Piastri pulled up alongside the Red Bull driver as they barreled into the corner but wisely chose not to force the issue.
©McLaren
"Pretty exciting to be honest. When I got off the line and was like ‘Ok, I’ve got the best start out of everyone here’ and [I] had to find somewhere to go, ran out of space," he explained.
"But I think the more exciting part was being able to hang on to the back of him [Verstappen] for a few laps, and even for the rest of the race it wasn’t like he was stupidly quicker than us.
"So that was very exciting to be genuinely the second-quickest team today exceeded all of our expectations, so yeah, nice to be back at the front."
So, so proud of you @OscarPiastri.
Disappointed with P4, as a rookie, says a lot! 🧡#BritishGP 🇬🇧pic.twitter.com/v0Z27vu8T2
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) July 9, 2023
There is no denying the step forward enjoyed by team papaya's car in the wake of its upgrades. Still, Piastri rued coming so close to his maiden podium in F1 and falling short by less than a second.
"Clearly the upgrade’s a massive step forward, very good step forward over one lap, but the race pace is clearly where we’ve made a massive jump," he said.
"Going into the race I was maybe slightly cautious we’d hit reverse like we have done recently.
"But if anything it was even stronger than Austria, so that was super exciting, yeah, it hurts a little bit to be P4 when we were looking on for a podium for so long.
"[We were a] bit unlucky with the Safety Car timing, but I’m just so happy that I’m disappointed with fourth place instead of what we’ve been disappointed with earlier in the season."
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