Oscar Piastri believes completing his first race start in Formula 1 was just one of many "boxes ticked" despite his Bahrain Grand Prix retirement. 2021 Formula 2 champion Piastri made his first race start since December 2021 in Sakhir but was forced to retire early on with electrical problems. It was the start of a miserable day for McLaren, with Lando Norris being forced to pit every 10 laps to refill the pneumatic pressure of his MCL60 after a leak. Despite the poor result, Australian Piastri feels it was important to go through the F1 start procedure for the first time, even if nearly went wrong.
Piastri describes how start nearly went wrong
"It was nice," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365.com , in Bahrain. "The start of the race, like the grid procedure, someone in front of me stopped in the wrong box. I don't know if it was Logan [Sargeant] or someone else but it was a bit of a last minute move into the correct box. "It all happened pretty quick, but I thought it was really good. "I didn't get the cleanest run into Turn 1 with [Yuki] Tsunoda, but yeah, for my first lap, it was pretty reasonable. "After that, I was sort of in the DRS train, not being able to do much until some other people had some tyre deg[radation] and then managed to pass [Nico] Hulkenberg. "So all in all, I think a lot of boxes ticked from the start and obviously [I] was pacing myself, so it was positive."
Piastri 'pleasantly surprised'
Piastri would go onto describe his first Grand Prix start as coming "pretty naturally", with prior knowledge of the Sakhir circuit from his F2 days proving beneficial. "I was I'd say pleasantly surprised and it came back pretty naturally," he said of making a race start. "Getting a good start, a good launch was a good confidence booster and then I did my homework for the first lap, and I've raced around here enough so I knew a little bit of what to expect. "I thought from my side, everything was going pretty well, the experience in the dirty air effect, following [another car], managing the battery pack at the start of the race are all now boxes that I've ticked off, or at least partially ticked off."
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