Heartbreak for Oscar Piastri as surprise Suzuka win slips away

Oscar Piastri believes McLaren’s disappointment at finishing second in Japan shows just how far the team has come, even if he did miss out on the victory.

Piastri lined up on the Suzuka grid on Sunday, his McLaren firing up ahead of the formation lap as he made his first grand prix start of the championship.

Oscar Piastri reflects on Suzuka near miss and McLaren progress

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Piastri didn’t even make it to the grid at the Australian Grand Prix where he crashed on a reconnaissance lap, while a week later in China, he did make it to the grid, only for McLaren to discover an electrical issue when his mechanics fired up his car ahead of the formation lap.

The third time was a charm for the Australian driver; it was almost a win as well.

Piastri qualified third for round three of the championship, 0.354s slower than pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli in the closest Saturday qualifying competition Mercedes had faced in F1 2026.

The McLaren driver was up into P1 at Turn 1, diving to the left of the slow-starting Antonelli to take the lead ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris. The Mercedes teammates clawed back positions, with Piastri leading Russell on Lap 15. He told McLaren: “If we hold track position, I think we can hang onto this.”

However, the timing of a Safety Car for Oliver Bearman’s huge 50G crash meant both Piastri and Russell lost positions as they had pitted in the preceding laps. They dropped to second and third behind Antonelli, who was the big winner as he was handed a free pit stop behind the Safety Car.

The Italian put an end to any possible attack from Piastri at the restart and pulled clear by several tenths per lap to win the grand prix by 13.7s ahead of the McLaren driver.

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Antonelli wins in Japan after huge crash for Bearman brings out Safety Car

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For Piastri, it may have been his first grand prix points of the championship, but it was still a disappointing result.

“It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened without that [the Safety Car],” he told 1996 world champion Damon Hill during the post-race parc ferme interviews.

“I thought I could keep George behind. And just before the stops we were actually pulling away a little bit again.

“So, yeah, a shame that we never got to see what would have happened.”

But being disappointed by a runner-up result is a positive for McLaren as the team managed just 18 points from Piastri and Lando Norris combined in the first two race weekend.

“I think for us at this point to be disappointed about finishing second is a pretty good place to be,” Piastri continued.

“So yeah, massive thanks to the team. I think we did a really good job of executing with what we had. I think we clearly still need to find a bit of performance. But we took every opportunity we had.”

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