Piastri was hit by a spinning Kevin Magnussen at the start and came into the pits to retire at the end of the first lap, but a red flag shown one tour later allowed McLaren the opportunity to repair his car and get him back out.
However, like fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo, this meant he was a lap down at the resumption with no chance of recovering points, with the remaining distance becoming somewhat of an unexpected test session.
“After Saturday, I had some clear things I wanted to try and improve on and I think I experimented with that a lot, some things successful, some not,” said Piastri.
“But it's very rare, you get an opportunity like that, to try things like that.
“Of course, I would prefer the opportunity didn't come up in the first place. But when it's there, you've got to try and capitalise on it with the lack of testing we have.”
He added: “I just tried to stay on the lead lap, and then, apart from that, learn as much as I could. It's not been the easiest of weekends.
“And thanks to the amazing effort from everyone to get the car back together in 20 minutes, which was no easy feat, I got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn't have.
“So, I learned a lot, just in general, but also, when I come back next year.”
Source: Autosport