Oscar Piastri discloses 'painful' response to Lando Norris 'battle' defeat

Oscar Piastri has conceded it was "a bit painful" to stomach losing to Lando Norris by such a fine margin in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Australian crossed the Hungaroring finish line just under seven-tenths of a second after his McLaren team-mate, seeing his F1 drivers' championship advantage cut to a mere nine points as a result.

The fact that Norris utilised the alternate one-stop strategy to recover from fifth place at the end of the first lap to triumph is a bitter pill for Piastri, who stayed on the conventional two-stopper, to swallow.

Despite eradicating the British driver's advantage after pitting for the second time, as they converged on track, he was unable to pass, something that makes it all the more "difficult" to accept for the 24-year-old.

When asked for his overriding emotion after securing his 12th podium in the opening 14 rounds of the campaign, Piastri acknowledged how "entertaining the race was despite coming up short.

"Mixed, I would say," the eight-time grand prix winner replied to media, including RacingNews365.

"Whenever you lose a race by such a little amount, it's obviously a bit painful, but I mean, I'm sure it was entertaining from the outside. It was entertaining from the inside as well.

"So, you know, pretty fun race, all things considered. But, obviously, when you're on the losing side of that battle, it's a little bit difficult."

Having lost out to a superior strategy employed by his team for his team-mate, Piastri maintained it would be "easy to say in hindsight" what the correct course of action would have been.

Focusing on the positives of the grand prix, he highlighted how he was able to get past the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who was battling issues, which helped him hold on to second place.

"But, yeah, we tried our best, I think, and, you know, we got ahead of Charles," the former F2 and F3 champion added.

"I don't know what happened to him in the last stint, but yeah, some things to look back on, whether we should have done something a bit different in terms of strategy, but very easy to say in hindsight."