Oscar Piastri "couldn't have started the year any better"

Australian Oscar Piastri says he “couldn’t have started the year any better” after taking out the opening race of the 2020 FIA Formula 3 season.

“Winning the first race is a great start to the year,” said the Melburnian after the dominant 24-lap display.

The Renault Academy driver reflected on his initial contact with pole-sitter Sebastian Fernandez on the opening lap: “it was very scary at Turn 1 at the start and I thought that it was going to be race over 10 seconds into my debut, but thankfully I got through that and made a good move on Lirim [Zendeli] into Turn 3.

"Then, I just controlled it from there. The tyre deg was a bit more than we were expecting and halfway into the race I was struggling a bit with the rears. Logan [Sargeant] was catching me and bringing the train with him, so I had to stay on my toes.

“I couldn’t have started the year any better really and hopefully we can make up a few spots in the reverse grid tomorrow.”

Piastri will go live on the FIA Formula 3 Instagram page with more at 9.00pm AEST, and will start from P10 in tomorrow’s reverse-grid Race 2.