The Brazilian finished in a hugely unexpected second place in a topsy-turvy German Grand Prix, with the 22-year-old profiting more than any driver from the mid-race safety car which propelled him up the order and into contention for the victory following his single fuel stop.
Piquet, who was passed by Lewis Hamilton for the lead in the closing stages, concedes he and Renault were fortunate to finish on the podium, especially after qualifying in a lowly 17th, but praised the team for its strategy decision.
“I dont even know where to start,” he said after scoring Renault's first 2008 podium.
“It started off as a good weekend on Friday and in final practice on Saturday – the car was getting better and better and our set-up was working very well.
“Even Fernando [Alonso] used a bit our set-up as he went a little the wrong way.
“So we were going well up until qualifying, but I didnt have a good first lap and then in the second one I got a bit of traffic and that was it – I qualified at the back.
“I thought that had finished my weekend.
“But obviously with these safety car rules you can get quite lucky and obviously the team made a good decision pulling me in [to pit] at the right time.
“Before the race, we had option open for one or two stops, and I think it was a perfect strategy because if we had gone for an aggressive short first stint to overtake at the beginning I couldnt have arrived here.
“So everything worked well. I got lucky and maintained my pace to the end to get here.”
After Hamilton dropped to fifth place following his late second stop, Piquet looked on course for one of the most unlikely victories in recent years after comfortably staying ahead of Felipe Massas Ferrari – until Hamilton took both as part of his stunning comeback charge.
But when his old GP2 rival caught up him, Piquet put up little defence when Hamilton made his move at the hairpin.
The Brazilian says such was the McLaren drivers speed, and his own comfortable advantage over Massa, it made little sense to risk losing second place.
"After the safety car I knew I just had to keep my pace,” he said.
“I knew I mustn't push my tyres too much at the beginning, I could have pushed a bit harder but I knew I had to keep them for the end [of the race].
"When I was leading the race I knew Lewis was coming by quickly and I knew Felipe wasn't that much quicker than me.
"If I'd taken too many risks [with Hamilton] Felipe might have overtaken me, so I decided I had to maintain second place rather than end up in third or fourth place and not be too happy.
“It was a good race – I maintained my pace, made no mistakes and kept the rear tyres working well.”
Piquet had scored just one points finish (seventh) in the opening half to his F1 career, but his eight points for second now puts him just three adrift of his double world champion team-mate Fernando Alonso.
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