Piastri declares Azerbaijan “best win of my career”

Piastri withstood extreme pressure from Charles Leclerc for more than half the race in Azerbaijan to seal victory in impressive fashion.

The Australian was inch-perfect throughout the 51-lap encounter despite holding less than a second advantage over his Ferrari rival for much of the race.

It was a supreme performance from Piastri, who rated it the best drive of his career.

“I think that ranks as probably my best win of my career,” he said.

“Trying to soak up that pressure for so long in that race, that was incredibly tough.”

Piastri started second and ran in Leclerc’s wheel tracks in the opening laps.

However, as the opening stint wore on, the Australian slipped away from the pole sitter, who built a six-second advantage when he pitted on Lap 16.

That advantage was all but erased during the pit sequence, Piastri stopping a lap earlier and using the undercut to full affect.

It left the McLaren driver in position to attack early in the second stint, stealing the lead with a bold move under brakes as they entered Turn 1 on Lap 20.

“In the first stint, when Charles was just pulling away pretty comfortably, I thought we were going to be second at best,” Piastri recounted.

“Even Checo [Sergio Perez] was keeping me very honest, and I could see Carlos [Sainz] was very quick at the end of the medium stint.

“I saw an opportunity, or half an opportunity, after the pit stop and knew I had to try and take it.

“I knew that getting to the lead was going to be one thing but I knew I had my work cut out for me after that to try and try and stay there because I didn’t feel like we were the quickest in that first stint. So it was very hard work.

“I think having clean air did help quite a bit, but that has to be one of the best races I’ve done.”

Both Piastri and Leclerc started on the medium tyres before swapping onto the hards – an tyre that neither driver had sampled during practice.

The Australian had suffered in the latter laps of the opening stint after asking too much of the rubber at the start of the race.

On the pit wall, engineer Tom Stallard was keen to avoid a repeat in the second stint.

“I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer, because I basically tried to [pass Leclerc] in the first stint and completely cooked my tyres,” Piastri admitted.

“So my engineer came on the radio and said, let’s not do that again, basically, and I completely ignored him the next lap and and sent it down the inside.

“I felt like trying to stay back and wait for Charles to deg was never going to happen. I thought it was just going to secure us P2,” Piastri added.

“I had a similar opportunity in the first stint and I felt like on Lap 2 or 3 I was just within DRS but didn’t fully capitalise on that opportunity, and I got the end of the straight thinking, ‘If I had have done a couple of things a bit differently here, I maybe had a chance’.

“So when I had a similar opportunity after the pit stop, I had to take it.”

Given his inability to pass Leclerc in the opening stint, Piastri believed the half chance was his only opportunity to take the lead.

“If I didn’t take that opportunity, then I was never going to have another one,” he reasoned.

“Credit to Charles, he was incredibly fair.

“Maybe he thought I was going to sail on into the runoff, but I was pleasantly surprised that I actually made the corner.

“It was a high risk, high commitment move, but that’s what I needed to do to try and win the race, because, you know, I wasn’t really going to be that keen to finish second.”

Once in the lead, Piastri could manage the race, though was never allowed to grow comfortable as Leclerc remained a threat until the final laps.

It was only then, when the Ferrari driver’s tyres cried enough, that Piastri had any respite.

To that point, he drove a defensive race, working to ensure he remained just clear of Leclerc despite the Ferrari driver being within DRS range most of the time.

“The key was actually hanging on in Sector 2,” Piastri detailed.

“I felt like, as long as I could keep the lead into Turn 1, then I felt like I could keep Charles behind.

“Turn 2 is a very, very slippery corner for some reason this weekend and if you could get good enough drive out of there, the straight is not quite long enough to have DRS really make an impact to catch back up.

“So, for me, just taking a lot of risk through the castle section is what I was trying to do, because I needed to try and make the gap from Turn 7 through the rest of the lap.

“I had a couple of close calls through the castle and Turn 15 as well, I think the guys probably need to put another rear corner on my car after after the race.

“But that was where I was really trying to be fast and obviously get a good exit out of the last corner.”

While it proved an effective strategy, execution was far from trivial.

Even still, Piastri delivered flawlessly under extreme pressure to deliver a sensational win in what was the race of the season.

“I knew that getting into the lead was going to be let’s say 40 percent of the job, but I knew that hanging onto it was going to be 60 percent,” he admitted.

“I knew that I’d used the tyres pretty heavily to try and get in front and I knew what kind of impact that had in the first stint.

“I was just hoping that the clean air was going to help me stay ahead, and it probably did a little bit, but then obviously you lose a lot of time with DRS.

“Trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly stressful, I couldn’t make a single mistake,” he added.

“I made a couple but at a track like Baku, it’s impossible to be driving flat out and not make any.

“I was just fortunate that they weren’t big enough that it cost me.

“So, yeah, just the whole 30 laps where I was trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly, incredibly tough.”