Oscar Piastri rues Suzuka unknown despite McLaren F1 breakthrough

Oscar Piastri feels it is a "shame" that he will never know if he could have held off George Russell for Japanese GP victory following a race-changing safety car.

From third on the grid, Piastri roared into the lead off the line and was comfortably ahead of Russell across the opening stint once the Mercedes had made its way back through the traffic following a poor start.

However, on Lap 21, during the pit-stop cycle, Oliver Bearman suffered a huge 50G crash, which triggered a safety car and meant that Kimi Antonelli was able to cycle to the lead, having not stopped, whilst Piastri and Russell had done so in the laps just before the crash. 

On the restart, Piastri was not able to keep pace with Antonelli, but in his first grand prix start of the season following two DNS's in Australia and China, the Australian claimed his first podium of the season.

Reflecting, he felt it was a "shame" not to know how the race would have panned out without the safety car.

"We're alright once we get to the start," Piastri joked.

"It would have been really interesting to see what happened without that, and I think I could have kept George behind and just behind the stops, we were actually pulling away a little bit.

"So it is a shame that we never got to see what would have happened, but for us at this point to be disappointed about finishing second is a pretty good place to be. 

"A massive thanks to the team, we did a really good job of executing with what we had, so clearly we need to find a bit of performance, but we took every opportunity we had today."