Oscar Piastri issues McLaren 'evidence' in progress defence

Oscar Piastri has outlined a breakthrough he felt he made for McLaren after scoring his best result since Miami in Austria.

The Australian was only seventh on the grid at the Red Bull Ring, but clambered up to fourth and fended off the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, despite McLaren appearing to be behind the Scuderia in the pecking order.

Piastri's fourth was the highest he had finished a grand prix since third in Miami four races ago and detailed how a different attack to the weekend was key to his performance after a "tricky" Barcelona weekend.

"That was pretty much it, and it was a bit of a surprise that we were able to beat Ferrari, and in my case, it wasn't by much," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365. 

"I think being able to follow a bit closer was probably a bit easier, and in the past, DRS was worth a lot, whereas overtake mode is not really worth that much.

"But the slipstream was a lot, and if you had a bit of tyre difference, which is what I had with Charles, then you could make things happen, but if you didn't have that, it was tough.

"I think strategy probably helped us a bit, but the pace was a little bit stronger than theirs, but clearly not strong enough to go to Mercedes and obviously Verstappen was quicker than we expected.

"I don't know about previous weekends, but certainly compared to Barcelona, [I was happier], and the race was similar in some ways and night and day different for me. 

"We put a lot of effort into understanding why Barcelona was so tricky, and we attacked things pretty differently for this weekend, and I think the result is evidence of that work.

"So from that side, I am really happy, but you just don't get a trophy at the end and wish for a bit more, but that was the absolute most."