Piastri following his 10-second penalty in São Paulo: "I can't disappear but the decision is what it is."
- Chloe Buckley
- 51 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Oscar Piastri had a strike of bad luck following a bump into Kimi Antonelli gained him a 10-second time penalty. Following his fifth-place finish in São Paulo, Piastri reacted to his performance in the race, as well as the penalty decision.
At the Safety Car restart on Lap 6 of the São Paulo Grand Prix, Piastri, Antonelli and Charles Leclerc went three-wide into Turn 1, with Piastri tapping Antonelli and then bumping into Leclerc. This brought out a yellow flag as Leclerc’s Ferrari suffered damage.
Piastri explained what happened from his perspective when speaking with the media following the race:
"I had a very clear opportunity, I went for it. The other two on the outside braked quite late. There was obviously a bit of a lock-up into the corner but that's because I could see Kimi was not going to give me any space.
"I can't disappear but the decision is what it is."
The stewards confirmed after the race that as well as the 10-second penalty, Piastri will have two points added to his superlicense.
Piastri is currently second in the World Drivers’ Championship with a 24 point gap to leader, Lando Norris.
"[I’ll] Just try and get the most out of it that I can,” he said when speaking about his title chances.
"Today, the penalty was one thing, but I don't think the pace was at a level that I wanted it to be. The second half of the race was potentially not too bad but the first stint was a little bit tough.
"[I’m] just trying to get back on top of things with that and have the best weekends we can."
McLaren Team Principal, Andrea Stella, spoke about where Piastri will go from here. The team will look to review the circumstances and make sure Piastri is driving to his full potential.
"We need certainly to make sure that we can extract the full potential out of the car and out of Oscar's driving in all conditions,” said Stella. “Lately we have faced these low-grip conditions which have challenged his natural style.
"We need to make sure that we are able to extract the most even when things don't work to our natural strengths.
"Also we need to look at the execution of the weekend because crashing in the Sprint, today with the penalty.
"We also need to review if there was something more we could have done with the strategy to help Oscar. So a few things that we need to review, not in a desperate way but in a rational way to capitalise on the strengths."
