Oscar Piastri has taken nice motivation from preventing for victory on the Japanese Grand Prix and believes he can beat Mercedes this 12 months.
Mercedes had been dominant at the beginning of the 2026 season, however after two one-two finishes in Australia and China, Piastri ended their profitable streak by chasing Kimi Antonelli at Suzuka.
Piastri’s perception was additional fueled by the truth that Antonelli was not overtaken on observe by the eventual race winner, which allowed him to profit from a fortuitously timed security automotive intervention, giving him an inexpensive pit cease and leapfrogging the McLaren driver.
Requested if he left Japan pondering Mercedes may win, Piastri mentioned: “Sure. We have identified since final 12 months, or I feel we have identified since final 12 months, that even when you may have the most effective automotive, you continue to must function it at an extremely excessive stage. And I feel on our facet, we have accomplished a extremely good job of that.”
“However I feel it is attention-grabbing to know that when different folks have the quickest automobiles, it isn’t that straightforward. And yeah, I feel the truth that we had been capable of maintain George behind for therefore lengthy was actually encouraging.”
“However we’re beneath no illusions. We did every little thing proper this weekend, however we nonetheless misplaced by 15 seconds, so there’s a reasonably large hole to shut. I am assured we will get there, however sure, we nonetheless have some work to do.”
Mercedes have misplaced positions at the beginning of every Grand Prix to date, and Piastri joined the Ferrari driver in Japan and appeared capable of overtake each Russell and Antonelli, however Antonelli dropped from first to sixth on the exit of Flip 2.
Russell was capable of claw his manner again to second place, however like Piastri, he was hampered by the timing of the security automotive and fell behind Charles Leclerc, who was unable to overhaul him as a result of Ferrari driver’s tactical battery placement.
Taking part in out a state of affairs by which the security automotive was not deployed, Piastri mused:
“I feel we’ll must look again and see if Kimi was quicker than George or if he had the identical tempo. If he had the identical tempo as George, it will have been fairly a demanding afternoon as a result of we in all probability each would have set the gearbox appropriately.”
“However yeah, I imply, in case you get some clear air, clearly he was rather a lot quicker than me. So I do not know if we might have received the race, however I actually would have appreciated to have identified that.”
