Piastri crashes out in Baku to end calamitous weekend
Ian Chadband |
Oscar Piastri has been left blaming himself for a calamitous weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after he crashed out on the first lap and then had to watch forlornly from a plastic chair at trackside in Baku as his world championship lead was cut.
But while Max Verstappen drove away to a masterful victory in his Red Bull on Sunday, Piastri could at least reflect the damage hadn’t be too bad to his title hopes as his main contender, McLaren teammate Lando Norris, could only finish seventh.
For the third race in a row, Norris had wretched luck, suffering another poor pitstop that ensured he couldn’t get among the big points, and he ended up gaining only six on Piastri to trim his lead to 25 points.
For the Australian, though, there was no disguising a rare and shocking weekend.
Piastri had a stewards’ reprimand on Friday for a yellow-flag offence, smashed into the barriers in Saturday’s qualifying and, from ninth on the grid, jumped the start on Sunday before falling to last in the field and then locking up and smashing into the barriers at turn five while desperately trying to make up places.
“Certainly not my finest moment. Just anticipated the start too much, a silly, simple error,” he sighed.
“Then with the crash, I just didn’t anticipate the dirty air in the way I should have and clearly went into the corner way too hot — and that was that.
“I’m certainly not blaming it on anything other than myself. I didn’t make the judgement calls that I needed to at the right time.”
It was a shock for observers, though, as the 24-year-old has been largely an error-free model of consistency during his stellar three-season rise.
This shocker, though, ended his streak of 34 successive finishes among the points, and also his sequence of 44 consecutive race finishes.
Instead, there was a glorious opportunity for Norris to power towards the podium places from his seventh-place start on the grid, but the Briton struggled to make headway on the tight, tricky street circuit.
Then McLaren came up with another woeful pit stop just as at the Italian Grand Prix last time out when Norris came out behind Piastri, prompting the team to controversially order the Australian to hand back the place.
McLaren could have clinched their second successive constructors’ title with a record seven rounds to spare in Baku, but that was never on the agenda.
Instead, world champ Verstappen’s supreme lights-out to flag procession from pole, winning by 14 seconds for a second straight triumph, even raised the spectre that he’s not yet out of this championship hunt, as he moved on to 255 points, 44 behind Norris and 69 adrift of Piastri with still seven races left
George Russell was second in his Mercedes while the other big story of the day was Carlos Sainz claiming a first podium for Williams since 2021 in third place.
Piastri will now have to regroup for the Singapore Grand Prix in two weeks’ time, with the big question being whether his confidence may have been dented after his first major mistake since the start of the season when he ran wide at Melbourne in his hometown grand prix.
“Today, just more silly mistakes, so, yes, it was certainly a messy weekend,” he shrugged.
“But I would be more concerned if I was slow and trying to make up for it that way and having these errors because of that.
“Just simple lapses in judgement … it’s obviously not a position I want to be in or put the mechanics in because it’s been a rough weekend for them but if I’m trying to find a silver lining then I suppose I have that.”
AAP
