Oscar Piastri has explained how reflections on his performance in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone spurred him onto his late season charge, including a Sprint win in Qatar.
Piastri qualified third at Silverstone as McLaren emerged as Red Bull's closest challengers, and looked set for a maiden Grand Prix podium in his rookie season.
However, a Safety Car for Kevin Magnussen's retirement in the Haas allowed Lewis Hamilton a free pit-stop, with the Mercedes rejoining in third ahead of Piastri, who could not get by on the restart.
Piastri still claimed a then-career best of fourth and would break his podium duck in the Japanese Grand Prix with third before a Sprint win and second place in Qatar towards the end of a strong rookie campaign.
He would eventually finish ninth in the standings - behind the two Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari drivers and Fernando Alonso and team-mate Lando Norris having backed up his strong reputation from a stellar junior career.
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"I would say it was big… I was feeling the love that weekend definitely," Piastri explained to F1 of his third place start and fourth-place finish at Silverstone.
"I still think to be honest, it was probably my most complete weekend, or one of the two, for the year. I was very happy with it.
"Both me and Lando were performing well that weekend so I was certainly feeling the love from the crowd, from the media – not that I'd paid that much attention to the media side of things.
“But it's always nice to have people saying good things about you.
"That was really the first weekend where it picked up and also the first weekend where I went, [afterwards]: 'That was a solid weekend that I feel like I got the most out of myself.'
"A lot of it [confidence] – for right or wrong – comes from results and I think all it takes sometimes is one good result and then you’ve got the belief that you can do it.
"I've always tried to not look at the results, and go on how I've felt things have gone and how well I think I’ve driven.
"In F1 there's only your team-mate that you can directly compare to, and Lando has been a very good benchmark.
"That's probably been the thing that's given me the confidence and then the results later in the year as well.
"But also, just simply knowing that I can mix it with these guys and now that I’m here with McLaren for another three years at least, all of those things help your confidence."
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