By Balazs Szabo on

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Although Lewis Hamilton dominated proceedings in Saturday’s sprint race in China, the 56-lap grand prix ended with a one-two finish for McLaren, with Oscar Piastri ahead of Lando Norris, the Australian taking the third win of his career.

For the Woking-based outift, it was win number 191, it’s third in a row and the fourth at this event, the first in 14 years, since Lewis Hamilton won in 2011. Piastri and Norris secured McLaren’s 50th one-two finish, the second for this driver pairing after they finished in the same order in Budapest last year.

Asked whether he has already started to think about the championship given McLaren’s dominant form in the early stages of the current season, Piastri denied that he would already spend much time with pondering about the championship standings.

“I mean, I think it’s very, very early, clearly. But I think no matter how short or long the championship is, you need to maximise the car that you have every race. I think we saw last year that Verstappen was able to win the championship by capitalising on the car he had in the first part of the year.

“And he obviously did a good job through the rest of the year as well, but he built the gap when he had the ability to build the gap. And I think that’s an important thing at the moment as well, because you never know when someone’s going to find some speed with an upgrade or find something in how they operate the car.

“There are pretty fine margins out there. So yeah, I think you obviously want to capitalise whenever you can, but I’m certainly not thinking about the championship yet. As much of a cliché as it is, it’s a cliché for a reason, and I’m focusing on one weekend at a time because ultimately that is how you win a championship: by getting the most out of every weekend.

Piastri achieved his maiden victory in Hungary last year, becoming the fifth Australian driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix, and repeated this feat in Azerbaijan. Although this victory might have been less emotional, Piastri insisted that his third F1 triumph has been the most satisfying so far.

“I mean, I was very happy to come through Turn 1 in the lead. I would have been pretty annoyed if I wasn’t. So that was pretty crucial for the first part of the race, especially given that we didn’t really know if it was going to be a one- or a two-stop at that point.

“And how critical being able to dictate the pace looked yesterday in the Sprint—I was obviously happy to keep the lead. I think this weekend’s been maybe less emotional than the first two wins I’ve had, but definitely more satisfying.

“I think it’s been a weekend where I’ve been quite comfortable, been confident in what I needed to do and how I’ve been driving. And I think the race today was… I still had to push and keep my foot on the gas, because the gap, apart from the last few laps, was never that big behind.

“So I always had to keep on my toes, but I feel like I just managed the race well when I needed to, and pushed when I needed to. So yeah, just very happy with how the whole weekend’s turned out,” the Melbourne-born driver noted.


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