Oscar Piastri has expressed his frustration over the 10-second penalty which knocked him out of podium contention at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix and dealt another hammer blow to his flailing title challenge.
Piastri clashed with Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Turn 1 at the early safety car restart, squeezing down the inside and making contact with the Mercedes driver.
That contact pitched Antonelli’s car into Charles Leclerc, instantly retiring the Ferrari driver from the race.
The stewards held Piastri, who finished the race fifth, responsible for the collision, saying the Australian “did not establish the required overlap prior to and at the apex, as his front axle was not alongside the mirror of Car 12, as defined in the Driving Standard Guidelines for overtaking on the inside of a corner.”
Piastri accepted the decision but didn’t fully agree with it.
“In my opinion I had a very clear opportunity up the inside, went for it, yes there was a lock-up but, you know, I was firmly on the apex, on the white line, I couldn’t go any further left, and I can’t just disappear.
“The decision is what it is, it was one of a number of difficult moments through today and this weekend, but, yeah, I wouldn’t have done anything differently if I had another chance.”
Piastri had locked his brakes to avoid contact but was unable to do so. When asked if that was a sign of him losing control, he said: “I don’t know, no matter what way you look at that, I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go, because, you know, when you have that good of a run into turn 1, fully alongside, you’re not just going to back out.
“To try and go in any deeper than I did would have been ambitious, and I was where I was, so I think in that scenario if I was clearly understeering and missing the apex, and then hit Kimi, then sure I’d understand.
“But the fact I was as far left as I could have gone, makes it tough.”
The penalty compounded what was a difficult weekend for Piastri, who finished fourth in qualifying and also suffered a crash in the sprint race. It was his second-successive fifth-place finish and Lando Norris‘ win in Sao Paulo means that he now leads his McLaren teammate by 24 points going into the Las Vegas GP.
– Brazilian Grand Prix: Lando Norris wins to increase lead at top
– Lando Norris on how he found form: ‘Ignore everyone that talks crap’
“Things have not been going easily, that’s for sure,” Piastri said.
“This weekend there were moments and flashes where I felt very comfortable … [in] practice things were coming much more easily again.
“It went away from us a little bit through the weekend, even just our pace as a team I don’t think was as strong as it went on Friday, and the car kind of went in a direction I wasn’t a big fan of.
“But we tried out best to get the car in a good window, the sprint crash made things difficult as well, just a lot of things going wrong at the moment, but there’s still flashes of really strong pace and trying to make sure we’ve got that all the time.”
Information from ESPN’s Nate Saunders contributed to this report.
