'Now he does it very well': Subtle Oscar Piastri improvement that's put him 'right in' the title hunt

Former F1 driver-turned commentator Martin Brundle has declared Oscar Piastri is "right in" the hunt for a drought-breaking drivers' championship.

The 23-year-old Melburnian led virtually every lap of the Chinese Grand Prix to claim the third win of his career and cement himself as a genuine title contender.

Piastri was quick all weekend in Shanghai, and generally had the wood over his teammate Lando Norris.

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It was a perfect redemption a week on from the heartbreaking spin that cost him a near-certain podium at his home race in Melbourne.

Piastri qualified third for Saturday's sprint race after McLaren botched its qualifying strategy. He rose to second in the 19-lap race after putting a great move on Max Verstappen with five laps to go.

Hours later, he set two laps that would have been quick enough for pole. Sunday's win has him sitting fourth in the world championship standings, 10 points behind Norris with 22 races still remaining in a marathon F1 season.

"He's just learning all the time, isn't he?" Brundle said on Sky Sports post-race.

"But for a very wet turn 13 [at Albert Park] last weekend in Australia, he could well have been leading the world championship.

"He's right in there. It looks like it could be quite a fight between Piastri and Norris as they ebb and flow."

Piastri said it was the "most complete" win of his career.

"I think for me this has been the most satisfying, not just race, but weekend for myself," he said.

"I think the two wins I had previously were very different, and I think this one's been the most complete ... to come away with this result is a perfect end to the weekend."

Piastri's dominance of the race is a perfect example of his rapid improvement as a driver.

At the same race last year, Norris finished second and Piastri a distant eighth, 42 seconds behind his teammate and nearly a minute behind race winner Max Verstappen.

The track was fully resurfaced in the 12 months since, but the comparison remains valid. On a weekend dominated by tyre degradation on the grippy new surface, Piastri was kindest on his Pirelli rubber.

Tyre management has been Piastri's Achille's heel for much of his first two seasons in the sport, but his performance in Shanghai suggests he's now mastered it.

"I think the performance that he has pulled off during this weekend shows how rapidly he grows, how rapidly he improves," McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports.

"Tyre management is definitely one of the most difficult to get when you are a rookie and enter this balance of pushing, not pushing, saving but not going too slow. It's a tricky one to make, and now he does it very well.

"But it's also the technicalities around the driving style. I've seen Oscar evolving from a driving points of view, and this is ultimately what makes the difference.

"If you are capable of pulling all these aspects together when it counts and the car is competitive, then you can pull off this sort of performance."

After two races, there's little doubt McLaren have the quickest car, and Piastri has vowed to make the most of the early season pace to set himself up for the rest of the season.

Only two Australians have won the biggest prize in motorsport – Jack Brabham and Alan Jones.

But Piastri insists he's not thinking about joining them. Not yet anyway.

"I mean, I think it's very, very early, clearly," he told media.

"But I think no matter how short or long the championship is, you need to maximise the car that you have every race.

"We saw last year that Verstappen was able to win the championship by capitalising on the car he had in the first part of the year – he obviously did a good job through the rest of the year as well, but he built the gap when he had the ability to build the gap.

"I think that's an important thing at the moment as well, because you never know when someone's going to find some speed with an upgrade or find something in how they operate the car. There are pretty fine margins out there.

"I think you obviously want to capitalise whenever you can, but I'm certainly not thinking about the championship yet.

"As much of a cliché as it is, it's a cliché for a reason, and I'm focusing on one weekend at a time because ultimately that is how you win a championship: by getting the most out of every weekend."

After back-to-back races in Melbourne and Shanghai, the F1 circus will enjoy a weekend off before a gruelling triple-header begins in Japan in a fortnight.