Oscar Piastri finished second to Max Verstappen in the Qatar Grand Prix, a race the Australian described as the hardest of his life.

Conditions at the Lusail circuit were baking with the air temperature still north of 30 degrees after the race finished at nearly 22:00 local time.

High humidity made that heat oppressive, with several drivers struggling throughout the race.

Logan Sargeant was forced out as he felt unwell while Fernando Alonso asked for something to be done at the pit stop to address the heat in the car.

Through it all, Piastri remained composed to deliver his best Sunday result in Formula 1.

His cause was aided by the coming together of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton at Turn 1, which boxed in Alonso and Charles Leclerc, allowing the McLaren driver to rise from sixth on the grid to second.

“Very, very happy, obviously,” Piastri said.

“Turn one was nice, that was definitely in the game plan before the race!

“Definitely the hardest race I’ve had in my life.”

After climbing from his car, Piastri sat to gather himself before laying on the floor of the anteroom ahead of stepping onto the podium.

“It was hot,” he noted.

“With three stops, it was basically flat out, so it was 57 qualifying laps, which I definitely feel like I’ve done.

“Happy that all the tyres stayed together, that was good. Happy with another trophy, too.”

Ahead of the race, it was announced that drivers would be limited to a maximum of 18 laps in a single stint as Pirelli maintained concerns over its tyres.

That came despite changes to the circuit following Friday’s running designed to prevent drivers from running wide over the sawtooth kerbs and damaging the rubber.

Piastri started the race on a set of medium tyres, pitting for the first time on Lap 12 for another set of mediums.

He swapped those again on Lap 24, again onto the yellow-walled rubber, before taking on a set of hards at his final stop on Lap 43.

In the final 14-lap run to the flag, the 22-year-old came under pressure from team-mate Lando Norris but didn’t put a foot wrong to maintain the place – helped by the McLaren pit wall instructing the Brit to hold station.

“I think the three-stop made it a lot harder, just physically,” Norris said.

“You can push a lot more, even the last stint you could pretty much push flat out.

“Probably one of the hardest races I’ve done, in a way, but it’s a nice challenge.

“Congrats to Oscar; no mistakes, and of course Max once again.”