Australian star Oscar Piastri secures best result of his F1 career at British Grand Prix

Aussie Formula One rookie Oscar Piastri’s name was chanted by thousands of happy fans after a career-best finish at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Max Verstappen became just the fifth driver to win six consecutive races with his victory at the GP, coming in ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in third.

Piastri finished fourth, but seemed destined for a podium finish after sitting behind his teammate Norris for most of the race.

The Aussie was overtaken in the pits by Hamilton, who was helped by a safety car deployment that was called following an engine failure to Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.

Hamilton, on a new set of softs, was too quick for the rookie for the rest of the race and denied him his first career podium finish.

‘It’s a bittersweet result,’ said the 22-year-old Melburnian afterwards.

‘That’s the best way to describe how I feel. The most pleasing aspect was that we achieved these results on merit.

‘I think it’s one thing to get these results by lucky incidents, but we were genuinely the second quickest team today, which was a very happy surprise.

‘On my side, we were unlucky with the safety car timing with Lewis getting a free stop. But it’s nice in some ways to be disappointed with a fourth place, considering where we were at the start of the year.’

Norris, who drove superbly and became the first McLaren driver since Hamilton to podium at Silverstone, expressed his disappointment for his teammate.

‘He should be sitting here,’ said Norris.

‘If things went to plan and there wasn’t a safety car. So it’s a bit of a shame. He deserved his first podium in Formula One.

‘I think it would have been amazing for us as Team McLaren and celebrating our 60th anniversary … and he deserved it. He’s been on top form all weekend, he’s been pushing me an insane amount.

Piastri described the impressive result at Silverstone as ‘bitter-sweet’

Piastri is very happy about the major strides McLaren have made in recent weeks

‘All year he’s been good. It’s not like he’s just turned up here and been strong. He’s been good since day one in the car and makes my life tough sometimes. I don’t always like it but it’s a good thing and makes me a better driver too.’

The result left thousands of delighted fans at Silverstone chanting both Norris’ and Piastri’s names during the post-race interviews.

Piastri took to Instagram after the race to sum up his drive, writing: ‘Safety car didn’t get the memo. But what a car!’

Retired F1 legend Alain Prost replied: ‘So proud of you, Oscar! Awesome drive.’

Before the race, Piastri’s dad, Chris, explained how happy he was for his son’s success and described the qualifying session as ‘the things that dreams are made of’.

‘It’s been such a journey, such an effort from everybody involved with Oscar,’ he told Speed Cafe.

‘After the year off, and finally now it seems like the car’s going in the right direction for both the boys – I’m super happy for both Oscar and Lando – this is amazing.’