Oscar Piastri admitted that a long opening stint behind both Mercedes cars transformed his Singapore Grand Prix into a damage limitation exercise, with a third-place finish at Marina Bay the best he could have done.
The McLaren driver acknowledged that a costly error in qualifying on Saturday that left him fifth on the grid had not helped his cause.
While he held his own at the start, he was unable to gain the upper hand on his Mercedes rivals until the second half of the race, at which point the more than 20-second gap to runner-up Max Verstappen was too great to close.
“[Qualifying] obviously wasn’t ideal, but today the aim was to get onto the podium,” Piastri said after the race, quoted by Speedcafe.
“I think losing so much time behind the Mercedes in the first stint meant that that [third] was definitely the most we could have done, so walking away reasonably happy.
“I think it was a good damage limitation day today.”
Although frustrated to be stuck behind his Mercedes rivals in the first half of the race, Piastri knew that his prolonged 38-lap opening stint on the medium tyre would eventually hand him an advantage over George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
“It was difficult for the last few laps of the stint, but until then I could tell that we had a good pace advantage over Mercedes,” he explained.
“And Lewis starting on the soft meant that I was never really going to try and push to get him early on.
“I knew that the race was going to come to me much later on, and that’s basically what we did.
“When I was in the dirty air behind them, it was tough, as it always is, but I knew that we had a good pace advantage and that the longer we kept going the more opportunities we opened up for ourselves the bigger tyre difference we had.
“If there was a Safety Car then we could have capitalised on it, so I think we executed it very well.”
Piastri admitted that once he had overhauled his Mercedes adversaries, his race became a lonely run to the chequered flag.
“It almost gets harder when it gets lonely,” he said. “Once I got past the Mercedes, Max was, I think, 20 seconds ahead, and I knew I was a lot quicker than the Mercedes, so the last 15 laps felt longer than the first 45.
“It was a tough race, definitely. It always is here. In some ways having the air blowing in your face and stuff like that is almost quite nice.
“The in-lap was actually probably… when you stop concentrating so much and you don’t have as much air in your face, it actually can feel worse.
“Definitely a tough evening, but that’s what we’re paid for.”
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