The driver, the car, or both? How Piastri crashed out in Melbourne before the race even started |
Oscar Piastri’s slip-up on the 30th anniversary of his home Australian Grand Prix might take 30 years to overcome.
The Melburnian didn’t even make it to the start of Sunday’s 58-lap race, crashing his McLaren on the formation lap to the grid.
Oscar Piastri’s car sits abandoned after he crashed out on a warm-up lap.Credit: Joe Armao
Fresh off his breakout season in the world championship last year, when he won seven grands prix and led the title chase for the majority of the season before finishing third, we explain what happened as his race ended before it even started.
First signs of trouble
The pit lane opens for 10 minutes half an hour before the race starts. This allows drivers to do an “out-lap” – so they can warm up the cars’ tyres and brakes before the formation lap and the race proper.
When Piastri inched towards Albert Park’s first corner on that very lap, his car’s battery did not deliver the expected power. His rear wheels spun aggressively out of the turn at low speed.
Piastri was quick to radio his team on the run between turns two and three, alerting McLaren that he had a battery deployment issue.
He short-shifted between gears to mitigate any potential loss of traction from, in F1-speak, a torque spike. That means the full power of Piastri’s engine would deploy instantaneously rather than in a linear fashion.
Disaster at turn four