One Year On | Oscar Piastri

I guess kind of afterwards, there was the sense of pride, but also a sense of relief. Obviously a lot of hard work and sacrifice in some ways to get to that point. So yeah, that was really, really special. I think the morning after, the first time I stood on top of an F1 podium was a pretty cool moment where I woke up and could go, you know, I'm an F1 winner now. Obviously immediately after the race, it feels kind of surreal. Then you do the interviews and have the articles written or whatever, and the social posts and stuff, and it all kind of hits as well. So kind of sunk in a bit more as time went on. Yeah, it was a proud moment. It's always nice hearing the Australian anthem, and I feel like there's at least a few Aussies pretty much everywhere we go, which is always nice. I remember very clearly in Budapest that there was a lot of Aussie flags, especially under the podium, which was really special. I didn't have a very exciting celebration. I was flying back with a few other drivers, actually. Lando, Alex Albon, Jack Dewan, a few others, and our flight got delayed by about three hours. So we were sat in an airport for a long time, then had to fly into a different airport. So it was a three-hour drive back home. So I got home at 5am. Yes, if you just take the headlines that I got back home at 5am after my first win, it sounds like a great time. But yeah, it wasn't particularly exciting, but that's okay with me. I did play Monopoly, yeah, that's true. So that was exciting. I had quite a lot of people reach out, family, friends, people that had been part of the journey. Probably one of the cooler ones or one of the more unexpected ones was from Sebastian Vettel, kind of sharing his experience of what his first win felt like. And yeah, that was a bit unexpected because I've not really spoken or met Seb before that. So I don't know, there wasn't anyone massively unexpected, but from a lot of other drivers, which was really nice. I think the race would have finished at about 1am or 2am in Australia. So the diehard fans were awake. My family was definitely awake. But yeah, I think for the general public, yeah, I think they woke up to that news. So it was kind of a bit of a wave when I won immediately after the race, but then almost a second wave when everyone woke up and saw the results. So that was nice that I got to relive it twice a little bit. I have had a replica trophy made. It is very proudly on my shelf at home. Yeah, it's a cool thing to look back on. There's one other keepsake from Hungary. I, for those that remember, I got given a five euro note on the Thursday or the Friday of the weekend, which was quite a cool moment. I have some other things being gifted, a few paintings and other cool things. I never used that helmet again. So I have the helmet from that race weekend as it finished the race. The replica trophy and the five euro note. I think probably the biggest thing from that weekend was, I think, firstly, ticking off a dream of mine and a goal in some ways of trying to win a Formula One race. But also, I guess, away from that, just that it was a really good weekend. And especially when I compare it back to Hungary in 2023, I was also very proud of the fact of the improvement that I'd made from year to year. So that's kind of one of the big things I took from that weekend. And yeah, just ticking off a dream that I'd had since I was a kid. It's going to be cool going back to the scene of my first F1 win. But I'm sure once I'm there, I'm going to be very much focused on how I can try and win again, as you try and do every weekend. Once the on-track action starts, it's going to be about how we can try and repeat that result.