Piastri Found Out He Was In Trouble When He 'Saw Someone's Tire Flying Through The Air'

Wednesday, 08 November 2023 at 03:00

McLaren F1 driver Oscar Piastri described the lap one collision during the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix that put him out of the points.

Oscar Piastri struggled to get into grips with his car on Interlagos Circuit - a circuit that he had never driven before in real life. In qualification, he went off the track on the final flying lap and had to start from the 10th place on the gird as a result.

Then after the start of the race, the Australian driver got unlucky as a collision happened right behind him and the car of Kevin Magnussen hit him in the back when braking into turn one. Piastri told the media:

"I hit the brakes for Turn 1 and then looked in the mirror. I saw someone's tire flying through the air and thought that didn't look very good."

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Similar to fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo on AlphaTauri, Piastri fell victim to a racing incident in which he didn't take part and had to pit his car to repair it after the first lap.

"Sure enough, I got an impact after that, it's a shame. There was nothing I could have done. When you qualify in those kinds of positions, you leave yourself much more at risk to stuff like that."

The McLaren driver took partial blame for the situation he has got into as he would not be in that place if he would have qualified in a better position.

"It all kind of starts from Friday, unfortunately. After that, [I] just tried to stay on the lead lap. And then, apart from that, [just] learn as much as I could. It's not been the easiest of weekends."

Fortunately for Piastri, the race was red-flagged during the second lap so his team had some time to repair his car and send him back onto the track.

"Thanks to the amazing effort from everyone to get the car back together in 20 minutes, which was no easy feat."

On the other hand, Piastri, along with Ricciardo, had to start from the pit lane and a lap down on everybody because they did not finish the second lap behind the safety car. The 22-year-old focused on the positives:

"I've got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn't have. So, you know, I learned a lot, just in general, but also, when I come back [to Brazil] next year."