The 25-year-old climbed from seventh on the grid to fourth at the Red Bull Ring, finishing ahead of both Ferraris and teammate Lando Norris on a stronger afternoon for McLaren’s race pace.
It marked Piastri’s best result since his Miami Grand Prix podium last month and lifted him to fourth in the drivers’ championship.
He is now one point clear of both Charles Leclerc and Norris, who finished seventh after a quieter race in Austria.
Piastri said he was satisfied with the result after conceding McLaren lacked the pace to challenge the drivers in front of him.
“Yeah definitely. I think that was the most I could have done,” he told Sky Sports.
“We didn’t have the pace to do anything more to match Mercedes or Max. And to be beat both Ferraris was a really good day.
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“So very happy with that,”
Piastri made early progress after starting seventh, moving ahead of Norris and later fighting his way past Leclerc on Lap 37 in a wheel-to-wheel battle at Turn 3, with the pair making light contact in the process.
Piastri said the opening phase of the race had been important in giving him priority on strategy over Norris, which allowed him to maximise McLaren’s result.
“I think in terms of getting the pit priority I wanted, it’s always the benefit of being the first car on the road for the team,” he said.
“I think the team did a good job on strategy not blinking too early. Not letting anything slide.
“I think the pace after that was just strong and I was able to get ahead of Charles.”
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Norris, who dropped behind Piastri early and later lost out to Isack Hadjar through the first pit sequence, said his race was compromised by the opening lap and the difficulty of recovering track position.
“I don’t think so. Obviously Oscar had to cover Hadjar in the beginning of the race, and I lost out to both cars, well one car, Hadjar, in that situation,” Norris said when asked if the strategy could have been better optimised.
“Which is very difficult to follow and overtake. A lot of it was done in strategy today. But I also just didn’t have the best lap one.
“My start was very strong, but after then was just a bit more of a struggle. Just a couple of times chose the wrong place to put the car and then lost out because of it.”
Norris said he still felt McLaren had salvaged a solid result, with Piastri beating both Ferraris and Norris eventually finishing ahead of Leclerc.
“A little bit unfortunate otherwise, but I think we still had a good race,” Norris said.
“We did a good job, well Oscar, to beat two Ferraris. Me to beat one of the Ferraris. But lost out to one Red Bull.
“So I think not a bad day in the office.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted the team did not have the pace to fight for the podium on merit, with Piastri finishing 21 seconds behind third-placed Antonelli.
“At the moment we have to accept that our competitiveness is not such that we can fight for the podium unless there are some situation like the reliability problem for some competitors in Barcelona,” Stella said.
“We know the mission is very clear. We need to add performance to the car. We have upgrades coming, we need to deliver them and that’s what we are working on.”
Stella said there were still positives to take from Austria, particularly McLaren’s race execution and Piastri’s response after a difficult run of recent races.
“There’s some positives. It’s the fact that in the race we were in condition to fight with Ferrari. We finished ahead of Ferrari. We capitalised on the car interacting well with tyres,” he said.
“I think our people operated well from a strategy point of view, remaining patient without going too early in the first stop. Oscar driving very well.
“We invested in understanding a few things after Barcelona and Oscar delivered that. So definitely positives. But the mission remains to make the MCL40 faster.”
Stella added Norris had been missing performance after losing ground early in the race, with the team set to review his weekend in the same way it had done with Piastri after Barcelona.
“Lando lost a position at the start. I think that put him a little bit on the back foot,” Stella said.
“But at the same time we have to say that he was missing a few tenths of a second. We will review like we did with Oscar after Barcelona.”
McLaren now heads to Silverstone, where Norris won last season, still searching for the performance needed to close the gap to Mercedes and Red Bull.
Norris said the British Grand Prix would present a different challenge, but admitted McLaren’s car remains difficult to consistently maximise.
“I mean a very different track there, but it’s tough. I mean it’s still clear how much we struggle in certain areas,” Norris said.
“So I think we’re always a little bit surprised to come out quite strong on the Sunday like we did today and like we did in Barcelona.
“I think we have the same complaints between drivers. Obviously, I maximised last weekend, Oscar maximised this weekend.
“So it’s clearly not an easy car to nail every weekend, but we’re making small bits of progress. That’s the main thing.”
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