Oscar Piastri received a black-and-white flag from the FIA during Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix for exceeding track limits, and admitted afterwards that he’d overstepped.
The McLaren driver was carrying front-wing damage after first-lap contact with George Russell’s Mercedes, which affected the car for the rest of the race. He finished eighth, his worst result since 11th in Canada.
Piastri said the contact happened when Russell kept squeezing him toward the wall. He braked to avoid him, and both cars ended up bunched together.
He said it was “easy to go a little bit too far” on a track with no kerb or wall on the inside of some corners.
“It was just a tough afternoon from literally the start,” Piastri reflected to the media, including Motorsport Week.
“From then on, the rest of the race was very compromised, obviously with some of the damage and the track position mainly.”
“I was alongside, and he just kept squeezing me to the wall, and then I hit the brakes and kind of avoided him. But amongst all that, he hit the brakes as well. Everyone hit the brakes, and we kind of got stuck together and everything.”
“I was just expecting a bit more space, and obviously between a car and a wall, you can’t make any more space, so that was tricky.”
“On a track like this, you’re always searching for a bit of clean air in the high-speed corners, and with no kerb or wall on the inside of some of the corners, it’s very easy to just go a little bit too far.”
Despite the finish, Piastri felt he’d had a decent race in clean air, but said getting stuck behind a train of cars after the pit stops, including Franco Colapinto’s Alpine, cost him further. He said the medium tyre was good for one lap and then fell away badly.
“I think the pace and clean air on the hard was pretty good, but we were trying to make up the pit loss of the VSC to the guys who pitted, and once they got the loss back, I was stuck again, so that was painful,” said Piastri.
“Then when we pitted onto the medium, we pitted into a four-car train, and that wasn’t great, and the medium tyre was just awful.
“It was good for [one lap], and then it was pretty terrible, so a lot of things to try and fix.”
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