Oscar Piastri Out of the Race in the Australian Grand Prix
Local driver Oscar Piastri suffered an unfortunate incident at the Australian Grand Prix, crashing on the formation lap and not even being able to start the race. The incident occurred when Piastri, fresh out of the pit-lane, was heading to his position on the grid. Apparently, a wheel touched the curb at turn 4, causing a spin and the subsequent crash against the wall. The accident occurred before a record crowd at the Albert Park circuit, where Piastri had qualified in fifth position. The Australian driver aspired to break the historic curse that haunts the race, as no Australian has managed to get on the podium.Visibly affected, Piastri expressed his regret to the media while the race unfolded on the screens around him. “Clearly, it’s not the way I wanted to start the year either. So, yes, I can only apologize,” he added. Piastri admitted his confusion about how he ended up against the wall, but took responsibility, although he hinted that it could have been a side effect of the complex new Formula 1 cars. It was the first time Piastri had driven one of the new cars to the grid. “I had a couple of things going on. The first thing I want to highlight is that there’s certainly a big element that was my fault, you know, cold tires… I’ve used that exit curb on every lap of the weekend, but, you know, I didn’t have to do it,” he explained. The driver added: “At the same time, I had about 100 kilowatts of extra power that I didn’t expect, which is not insignificant. I think the hard part to accept is that everything was working normally. It’s just a function of how the engines have to work with the rules. So that’s the hard part to accept.” Faced with the question of whether it was possible to break the curse of not having an Australian driver on the podium, Piastri sighed and replied: “Clearly, it’s still alive.”Obviously, very disappointing. I don’t have many more words to say. I am very sorry, obviously, for everyone who came to support me.
Oscar Piastri
