Oscar Piastri says it was tougher than he had expected to get through the field in the Formula 1 Mexico City GP, and that he suffered from rarely being able to run in clear air.
The McLaren driver started only 187th after a mistake in qualifying, and was one of the few drivers at the back of the field to start on medium tyres.
He managed to run a marathon 40-lap stint on them as he worked his way up to an eventual eighth place at the flag.
Piastri said while the result was disappointing, it had nevertheless been a good weekend for him.
“I think when the field is so tightly-bunched, it’s always very difficult to make progress,” he said. “So, yeah it was maybe a little bit tougher than I expected.
“I think the pace at the end of the race was good once I got some clean air. I just didn’t have enough of it, starting from where I was.
“So obviously that’s the thing to work on next week. I think outside the results, honestly, it felt like it was coming together to be a good weekend.
“So the result is obviously a massive shame, but I think there’s still some positives comparing to last weekend, which was a pretty lonely P5, I felt like today I at least had a bit more control over my destiny. So let’s see what can happen next week.”
After the start Piastri took several laps even to get past the Saubers of Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas.
“It was tough,” he said. “I think looking at last year’s race for Lando, and even last week for George, it’s very, very tough no matter which car you’re in, to get through a pack.
“You kind of need to wait for everything to spread out a bit. And once it did spread out, then I was able to come through reasonably quickly.
“It’s just that you’re kind of at the mercy of what the cars ahead of you do. So hopefully the tyres we tested in FP2 make that a bit easier next year, but hopefully I don’t have to start that far back again and do a better job at quali.
“So obviously, some things to improve, but I think outside of the results, behind the scenes, I felt like it was a much more positive weekend than Austin. So looking forward to next week.”
Among the drivers who made it hardest for him was Franco Colapinto, with Piastri twice coming up behind the Williams driver.
“Honestly, in the first stint, he was not too slow,” said the Australian. “I think after I pitted, he had to quite a big moment, and then defended very hard, which I think cost both of us a lot of time. But he can do what he wants. He doesn’t have to make life easy.
“So it was just a bit tougher than I expected to get through. But once we had some clean air, the pace was good. So think the key in that is make sure we got clean air by qualifying in front.”