Oscar Piastri boosted by 'ideas' for tackling 'rapid' Lewis Hamilton

Oscar Piastri is confident McLaren will be full of ideas for tackling Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari after settling for the runner-up spot in the China sprint. From third on the grid, Piastri had to bide his time and wait for Red Bull's Max Verstappen to suffer with his tyres before making a move on lap 15 into the hairpin at the end of the long back straight at the Shanghai International Circuit to claim second position. By that stage of the 19-lap race, the gap to race winner Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari was too big for Piastri to bridge. After the disappointment of his home race in Australia a week ago, where a near-certain second turned into a scramble for points after a late off into the grass as heavy rain fell, Piastri is satisfied with his recovery so far in China. "It was a really productive sprint," said Piastri. "Finishing second is always a great result, and I think I really learned a lot in that one. "As much as the result is a nice thing, the way I got the result is encouraging." Piastri is now confident going into qualifying and for Sunday's grand prix. "We didn't quite have enough pace for Lewis out front but we've got some good ideas for this afternoon and tomorrow, and we'll see if we can go one spot better," added Piastri. "Hopefully we don't have as much traffic, though. That's the plan. So we'll see what we can do this afternoon to start a bit higher and go from there. "But we've good pace in the car, we've clearly got a lot of competition this weekend. The Ferraris look pretty rapid, so we've got to be on our best form."