Oscar Piastri explains 'silly mistake' which caused Sprint race crash

Oscar Piastri is determined to rewrite his weekend and quickly move on from his Sprint race crash, which resulted in the Australian dropping nine points behind teammate Lando Norris. 

Oscar Piastri after the incident | Credit: Formula One

Since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri has underperformed in comparison with his teammate Lando Norris. Piastri has failed to secure a podium since September, with his best finish at Singapore in fourth place. After a series of disappointing results, Norris claimed victory in Mexico, moving up ahead of his teammate by a single point. 

Piastri qualified in third for the São Paulo Sprint Race, behind Kimi Antonelli and Norris. With heavy rain hitting the track overnight, the cars took to a damp circuit in the early afternoon. On Lap 7, Piastri ran into a puddle at the Turn 3 kerb, causing his MCL38 to lose grip and hit the barriers.

Subsequently, Nico Hülkenberg and Franco Colapinto crashed at the same corner, bringing the red flag out.

After a brief period under the red flag, the track went back to green flag conditions, where Norris took victory ahead of the pair of Mercedes. A late surge of power from Antonelli threatened the Briton’s race lead, as he was suffering from tyre degradation; however, he defended against the 19-year-old to seal his victory.

Qualifying will take place in the late afternoon in Interlagos, where Piastri is determined to move on from the incident:

“I just dipped a wheel on the white line of the kerb and around I went.

“A silly mistake really, an unfortunate mistake, so that’s it.”

"Just trying to put this behind (me)," Piastri said to the media. 

"There is a lot more points on offer tomorrow, so the better job I can do to get myself a good starting spot, the better it will be."

Following the sprint, McLaren Team Principal, Andrea Stella spoke about the incident, explaining that the ‘missed opportunity’ for Piastri will cause the Australian to ‘reset quickly’ before the late afternoon’s qualifying session:

 "It was a great result for Lando, and a missed opportunity with Oscar," Stella told media. 

"Conditions are tricky, you put the wheel on a kerb and that's completely unforgiving, there's no way to control the car.

"It happened to three drivers in the same lap, in the same point. So, it's just unfortunate, but the most reassuring input thus far, is that Oscar [Piastri] has been fast. So we now look forward, we want to capitalise this speed in qualifying and then in the race tomorrow.

 "He will reset very quickly. I'm sure as soon as he's back with the engineers, he's thinking about what we can do for qualifying, what did we learn from the fuel-ups in the sprint. Racers, they reset, they go again. And you don't have to carry any disappointment, because otherwise you're just depowering yourself.

"We know that Oscar is very capable, very quick, so we repair the car and we go again."

Can Piastri bounce back in qualifying to rewrite his weekend? Or will Norris once again be the top scoring McLaren?