Just as calm and measured amid his obvious disappointment as he\u2019s been level-headed during the highest points of a remarkable season, Oscar Piastri is confident of rediscovering that giddy feeling of being \u201cunstoppable\u201d behind the wheel of his McLaren.<\/p>\n
Taking his title disappointment on the chin on Sunday after finishing runner-up in Abu Dhabi and third in the championship race, the Australian said he was ready to use any sense of anti-climax to fuel a push to become a world champion of the future.<\/p>\n
With McLaren team boss Andrea Stella adamant he could go on and win the drivers\u2019 championship \u201cmultiple\u201d times, Piastri admitted there had been times in the season, as he had powered 34 points clear of his teammate and new champion Lando Norris, when he felt just about invincible.<\/p>\n
He won seven races in all and only suffered one major six-week blip near the end of the campaign when his lead evaporated and Norris cashed in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned plenty of things along the way this season,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen things have been good this year, I\u2019ve felt unstoppable at points \u2013 and to even be able to get to that point is a pretty cool feeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been plenty of times where that\u2019s not been the case, too, and I think I\u2019ve learned a lot of lessons on how to deal with tough moments, adversity, from different directions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo ultimately, I\u2019ve learned a lot about myself. I\u2019ve obviously been in championship battles before in the junior categories, but in F1, it\u2019s got a little bit extra to it, so I\u2019ve learned plenty about that and think that\u2019ll only help me as I go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris on the podium at Yas Marina Circuit. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Piastri was adamant he felt \u201cpretty good\u201d about his final-day effort as he finished behind winner Max Verstappen, with Norris\u2019s third place enough to secure him the crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn a personal level, it\u2019s obviously not quite the ending that I wished for but when you look at the season as a whole, I\u2019m very proud of the work I, and my team, have been able to put in to make so much progress from last year. I\u2019m looking forward to plenty more fights in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Losing to Norris, ultimately, by just 13 points, Piastri could reflect on that costly barren spell, which started with a calamitous weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and continued with disappointing outings at the US, Mexican and Sao Paulo Grands Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice to find some form again because it would have been pretty painful to end it on the note of Austin, Mexico and Brazil,\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately, there were ups and downs through the year, but I\u2019ll look back on the ups with a lot of pride and joy, and look on the downs with plenty of lessons learned. There are plenty more years left to go and hopefully plenty more opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Sport in Focus<\/p>\n Our picture editors select their favourite sporting images from the past week, from the spectacular to the powerful, and with a little bit of fun thrown in<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Norris offered an emotional tribute to his teammate, admitting he wouldn\u2019t have been the same driver without being made to dig so deep by the \u201cincredible\u201d Australian.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019ve had Oscar as teammate the last three years, because even though he\u2019s still a lot newer to it than me, I\u2019ve learned a lot from him, and he showed me up many times. I wouldn\u2019t be the driver I am today without that,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s made me have to dig even deeper than I ever have before, because by the season\u2019s midpoint, he was performing better than I was, and doing a better job consistently.<\/p>\n \u201cAt some point, he\u2019s going to get the better of me, because he\u2019s an incredible driver. I\u2019ve learned a lot, enjoyed it a lot, and, sadly, I\u2019ve got a lot more seasons with him in the future. So I look forward to those tough moments as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just as calm and measured amid his obvious disappointment as he\u2019s been level-headed during the highest points of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-333793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}