Piastri honoured to stand on Monaco podium

Oscar Piastri became the fifth Australian to score a podium finish on the famous streets of Monaco, finishing second only behind home hero Charles Leclerc in a “tricky race.”

Piastri started on the front row after a special qualifying effort and overcame a tense battle with Carlos Sainz to secure the runner-up position.

The #81 did push Leclerc during the closing stages before ending up 7.152s adrift at the chequered flag after 78 laps on the one set of Hards.

However, it is automatically one of the biggest highlights of Piastri’s career after he followed in the footsteps of Sir Jack Brabham, Alan Jones, Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo as fellow Australian to stand on the podium and was the quickest to do so in just his second attempt.

The McLaren driver in the Ayrton Senna tribute livery could not hide the smile as he accepted the silver trophy from Charlene, Princess of Monaco.

Piastri admitted it was a special feeling standing on the podium for the first time in 2024 after carrying momentum from recent races into an impressive weekend behind the wheel around the unforgiving streets of Monte Carlo.

“I’m very, very happy,” he said.

“Third podium in F1 certainly doesn’t get old, but very happy to have it here in Monaco, especially. It was a tricky race.

“If there’s one podium apart from your home podium that you want to stand on, it’s probably here. So, very, very pleased for the whole team. 

“I think especially for our side of the garage, it’s been a promising few weekends now and nice to finally get a good result out of it.”

The 70th Monaco Grand Prix will be remembered for its wild start and Piastri himself had a close call.

Before all the chaos unfolded and brought out the red flag, the Aussie and Sainz went side by side into Sainte Devote.

Piastri hung tough on the outside, perfectly placing his MCL38 between the wall and the Ferrari to retain second place, but it was not without its risk.

Sainz’s front left scrapped the sidepod of Piastri, which gave the Spaniard a puncture and forcing the #55 to come to a stop at Casino Square.

Due to the red flag Ferrari was able to fix Sainz’s damage as he  was reinstated third, but Piastri also revealed the #81 was not without battle scars of its own.

“I definitely felt the touch at Turn 1,” he said.

“The team told me how much downforce I was losing before we tried to fix it and it was a pretty big number. 

“I don’t know what we managed to get it down to but yeah, obviously the length of the red flag helped us out quite a lot there. “And being in Monaco, it’s probably the one track where having damage doesn’t hurt you as much. 

“But with these cars, especially with the floor being so sensitive to the downforce it generates, it can ruin your race very easily, so I was very happy we could try and fix it.”

When the race resumed, Piastri had no such scares and was able to hound Leclerc throughout the first quarter of the race.

The Aussie admitted he thought about having a look, but Leclerc was a man on a mission.

“I had an attempt about 10 or 15 laps in, into Turn 8,” Piastri said. 

“We were going pretty slow. I think at one point we were going slower than Formula 2 and you’ve got a fair few options. 

“But I kind of knew that once I showed my hand in where I was going to try and overtake, that he would probably be wise to it from there. 

“So I managed to get very close in Turn 7, one lap and tried to show the nose in Turn 8 but he reacted just quick enough, so after that point I knew I was going to be very limited on options.”

However, the podium is a sweet reward for pace and persistence for Piastri, who has had plenty of speed, but little to show for it in recent races.

He was challenging Max Verstappen for victory in Miami before the Safety Car and Sainz clash ruined his race, while a grid penalty robbed him of another front row start at Imola.

Piastri believes the last three weeks and his shiny new trophy gives him plenty of optimism.

“I think there have been three very different circuits in the past three races, and we’ve been competitive at all of them,” he said. 

“Miami was probably one of our worst circuits before this year. Imola has always been kind to us, but we had a very strong weekend there

“Let’s say our car’s never been the strongest in the slow corners, and this weekend we’ve been very quick again, so I think we can be confident wherever we go. 

“I feel like we don’t have to rely on the high-speed circuits like we did last year to get our results, which is a very exciting thing to have going forward.

“I think we can definitely be in the fight every weekend.”

Photo by Mark Sutton / Sutton Images

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