Oscar Piastri out of Australian GP after dramatic crash on way to grid

Oscar Piastri will not take part in his Australian Grand Prix home race after crashing his McLaren Formula 1 car on his lap to the grid.

Some 40 minutes before the race Piastri left the pits for the customary laps to the grid as teams conduct their final checks before taking up their grid positions.

But coming out of the Turn 4 left-hander, Piastri suddenly lost control over his McLaren as he crossed the exit kerbs, with his MCL40 spinning and veering into the wall on drivers’ left.

Piastri escaped without injury, but destroyed the front-end of his McLaren, with terminal damage to his right-front wheel and suspension, forcing the Australian to park his car on the spot as he dejectedly walked away from the scene.

Piastri had qualified fifth for his home race and was due to share the third row with team-mate Lando Norris.

The crash was a huge blow to the Australian fans, with a record crowd turning out to cheer the Melbourne native on. The sold-out Piastri grandstand on the main straight overlooking the McLaren garage, which had been cheering its driver’s exit from the pitlane, fell silent in one fell swoop.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 immediately after the crash, McLaren team boss Zak Brown said there was nothing immediately clear from the squad’s data that pointed to something wrong with Piastri’s car to cause the crash.

“We’ve not seen anything on the data so far. He didn’t say anything on the radio. So we’ll do a post-mortem after the race and see what happened,” Brown said.

“For now, we’ve got to focus on the car we have in the race and get the excitement level back up because that’s definitely disappointing for Oscar at his home race. But let’s see what happens now.

“I’m sure he’ll be sore about that one for a while. But these race car drivers know how to recover quickly. So definitely not the way you want to get started.”

Meanwhile, Audi driver Nico Hulkenberg has lost his 11th spot after encountering a problem on the way to the grid. The German had to be pushed back to the garage by his mechanics and has now been asked by the FIA to start from the pitlane instead.

Mercedes driver George Russell will start from pole at Albert Park ahead of team-mate Kimi Antonelli, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar third.