Oscar Piastri was left frustrated by the \u201clapses in judgement\u201d and \u201csilly mistakes\u201d that combined to end his Azerbaijan Grand Prix on the opening lap.<\/p>\n
Championship leader Piastri<\/a> was on a 34-race points-scoring streak ahead of the Baku weekend, with his consistent scoring a cornerstone of his title charge.<\/p>\n However, after an error in Saturday’s Qualifying that saw him collide with the wall in Q3 \u2013 leaving him with a ninth-place starting slot on the grid \u2013 Sunday failed to get any better for the Australian.<\/p>\n A jump start on the grid, and an ensuing anti-stall, immediately pushed the McLaren man towards the back of the order, before he broke late for Turn 5, locked his front-left tyre and slid helplessly into the wall, ending his race there and then.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly not my finest moment,\u201d he told Sky Sports F1. \u201cI just anticipated the start too much, and it was a silly, simple error with that. Then, the crash \u2013 I just didn\u2019t anticipate the dirty air in the way I should have. I clearly went into the corner way too hot and that was that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe grip level was low, but I should have known that. I\u2019m certainly not blaming it on anything other than myself, I just didn\u2019t make the judgement calls that I needed to at the right time, and that\u2019s obviously disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n The weekend as a whole was far from ideal for Piastri with the damage caused by his Q3 crash also resulting in a chassis swap for the Grand Prix.<\/p>\n \u201cQualifying yesterday, it was what it was,\u201d he added. \u201cThen today, just more silly mistakes. It was certainly a messy weekend for sure, but I would be more concerned if I was slow and trying to make up for it that way and having these errors because of that.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the fact that they\u2019re just simple lapses in judgement… it\u2019s not a position I want to be in or to put the mechanics in, because it has been a rough weekend for them. If I\u2019m trying to find a silver lining, at least I have that.\u201d<\/p>\n An added positive for Piastri is that his McLaren<\/a> team mate Lando Norris<\/a> could only manage seventh place in Baku, meaning the Australian retains a 25-point lead in the Drivers’ Standings.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not too concerned about that,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m solely focused on myself and what I can do to improve. There\u2019s still a long way to go, and if you have good or bad weekends, the championship is far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri was left frustrated by the \u201clapses in judgement\u201d and \u201csilly mistakes\u201d that combined to end his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-159060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159060","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=159060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}