McLaren has made a brutal admission over the 10-second time penalty awarded to Oscar Piastri at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix.
Piastri and McLaren’s race unravelled on the opening lap of the F1 Canadian GP, forced to pit after a disastrous decision to start the race on slick tyres backfired.
Dropped into the clutches of the midfield, he and teammate Norris were forced to battle their way back up the order, but Piastri would struggle to make progress.
His race woes were compounded shortly afterwards, as he misjudged his braking into the hairpin, careering into the sidepod of Alex Albon’s Williams.
While Piastri was able to continue, Albon retired on the spot, the internals of his FW48 exposed and steaming away as a result of the incident.
The stewards took a dim view of Piastri’s actions, awarding the Australian a 10-second time penalty that all but killed his chances of points.
Team Principal Andrea Stella confirmed that he agreed with their decision.
“In terms of Oscar’s incident, the stewards penalised the incident and this is deserved,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s much more to add.’
Oscar Piastri incident labelled ‘a misjudgement’
Stella, reflecting on a tough afternoon for McLaren in Montreal, admitted points were a possibility prior to the crash that he called a “misjudgement”.
“It was a misjudgement. Obviously there must have been some pressure as well to try and recover, but ultimately, this was penalised by the stewards and was also penalised by the fact that the car was damaged.
“In hindsight, definitely the points would have been possible, but we didn’t have a pace that could have allowed us to recover.
“[Franco] Colapinto [who finished sixth], I’m not sure that was possible in terms of catching up after the issues we had at the start.
“The car was damaged, so Oscar lost some performance.”
McLaren’s race in Montreal was over before the lights went out, its decision to start on intermediate tyres perplexing many. Expect a fightback this weekend in Monaco.
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