a record-breaking session.<\/a><\/p>\nHe will start ninth in the race, with championship rival Lando Norris only two places ahead after brushing the barriers on his own final run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I just braked a little bit late,\u201d Piastri told Sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not seen any data or anything, but it\u2019s normally what happens when you\u2019re locking your brake, it\u2019s a bit late.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, disappointing obviously. I feel like the car was in a good place and yeah, disappointing way to end.\u201d<\/p>\n
The McLaren driver said the conditions \u2014 with high winds and light rain disrupting running throughout the two-hour session \u2014 made grip difficult to judge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first two corners were really good, and then I don\u2019t know if I just tried a bit too much or the rain being around,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some corners even on the out lap that felt a little bit tricky.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately I need to go and have a look, but I think a case of just trying a little bit too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he still believed victory was possible, Piastri was realistic about his chances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the win is ambitious,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going to make progress, the car has been quick this weekend so hopefully we can use that to make some progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team principal Andrea Stella defended his driver, noting how treacherous the conditions had been.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of wind. It was difficult to put laps together,\u201d Stella said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Oscar was actually on a very, very strong performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll have to look at the data carefully, but it just seemed like he overdid a bit in braking and we know this place is very unforgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stella added that Norris had also been caught out while on a strong lap, costing McLaren the chance of a stronger result.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo some extent this affected also Lando\u2019s qualifying because he was on a good lap in Q3 and he also touched the wall and he lost a lot of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis can happen in Baku. We will reset, we will repair Oscar\u2019s car.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a long day today and tomorrow and we look forward to a race where we want to recover the positions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen takes wild Baku pole, Lawson stuns with P3 as Piastri crashes<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 24-year-old, who had qualified in the top four at every race so far in 2025, lost control…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,98125,817,813,816,2333,12357,85],"class_list":["post-157310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-azerbaijan-gp","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Piastri](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/XPB_1373952_HiRes.jpg\")
<\/p>\n