Piastri and Russell were locked in battle in the closing stages of the 53-lap affair, with the Australian seemingly having seen off the worst of the Mercedes driver’s assault.

At the end of Lap 49, the Brit had attempted to dive up the side of the McLaren at the final chicane.

It was a move that saw the pair wheel-to-wheel through the tight right-left complex and forced Piastri to take to the run-off as he was pushed off the road.

He maintained his position in an incident that the stewards investigated post-race.

At the time, the exchange looked to have been the best Russell had before a mistake entering that same complex on the penultimate lap offered one last opportunity.

Having gone too deep into the left-hander, Piastri’s exit was compromised. With his pursuer in DRS range, he became a sitting duck as they raced down the front straight to begin the final lap.

“A few tough moments with George, but in the end I made a mistake and he got past,” Piastri lamented.

“Disappointing to let that one slip right at the end, but yeah, struggled a bit in turbulent air.”

Piastri had been running in the wake of Fernando Alonso but was unable to make inroads on the Aston Martin ahead who was using his battery as a means to defend from the McLaren behind.

“I could tell Fernando was trying to keep me there by the way he was using his energy,” the 23-year-old reasoned.

“With how difficult it is to follow in these cars, it is a good strategy to try and stop a quicker car coming through.”

Piastri crossed the line in eighth, two places back from where he’s started – losing out to Russell and the recovering Charles Leclerc.

McLaren started both its drivers on the medium tyre before switching to hard rubber for the final two stints.

It was a strategy choice unavailable to Red Bull Racing or Ferrari, both of whom only had a single set of hard rubber available, while Aston Martin had just one hard set plus an array of softs.

“Some strategies were a bit of a surprise,” Piastri noted.

“Obviously, for Mercedes, I assumed their plan was to try the hard one-stop effectively and I think converted back to a medium. Impressive from Leclerc to pull off a one-stop.

“I don’t think we could have done a one-stop,” he added.

“Definitely some interesting things to learn and I think we just struggled a bit on pace today.”

Post-race, officials deemed the clash with Russell was a racing incident, and issued no penalty.

In coming to that decision, it was determined that Russell did not ‘dive in’, left racing room, and Piastri made the decision to leave the track after he felt contact from the Mercedes.

It was also noted that Russell left sufficient room for Piastri to remain on the race track, had he opted to do so.

“The driving standards are however silent on what action is required of a driver who leaves the track to avoid a collision or is forced off, safely rejoins the track and retains position,” the stewards noted.

“Not that this is a determining point, we note that both drivers and team representatives agreed this incident did not warrant the imposition of any penalty.”