Lady Luck was too busy with Kimi Antonelli today to help Oscar Piastri, but nonetheless the Australian leaves Japan feeling confident.

If nothing else, as he headed into Turn 1 in the lead, at least the Australian knew this wasn't to be his third DNS of the season. Pitting on Lap 18, moments after being passed by George Russell, the Australian rejoined in sixth, confident that he could take the fight to Mercedes... but then fate stepped in.

Oliver Bearman's crash, just after Piastri and Russell had pitted, handed Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton a free pit stop, and though Piastri was soon up to second he was unable to take the fight to the Italian teenager.

"I would have loved to have seen how it would have panned out," Piastri told reporters at race end. "I think you know I need to look back and see how you know whether Kimi was quicker than George or similar pace, I think if he was the same pace as George then it would have been a pretty stressful afternoon," he added.

"I probably would have had both of them right on my gearbox, but yeah I mean I think once Kimi had clean air clearly he was a lot faster than me so I'm not sure we would have won the race but I certainly would have loved to have found out."

Despite it being Mercedes third win of the season, today suggested that the German team is beatable. Piastri agrees.

"We knew from last year, or we know from last year, that even when you have the best car you still need to operate it at, you know, an incredibly high level," he said. "I think today on our side we did a really good job of that but I think it's, yeah, it's interesting to see, you know, when someone else has the fastest car that it's not that straightforward.

"I think, you know, the fact that I could keep George behind for so long was really encouraging but, you know, we're under no illusion we did everything right this weekend and we still got beaten by 15 seconds. So, we've got a pretty big gap to fill. I'm confident that we can get there, but we've still got some work to do."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by nickybur, 3 hours ago

""Lights out, and away we yo-yo"
Just watched my first GP this year, and by golly what the heck was going on!
Sky's commentary team are dismal, remember Stop The Cock!, we need a complete overhaul there, especially as there are so many good honest presenters out there.
"

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2. Posted by JamesD, 5 hours ago

"McLaren is beatable, insists Piastri - er, I think you mean Mercedes !!"

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Mercedes is beatable, insists Piastri

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