an uncharacteristically messy round<\/a> in Baku as his drivers\u2019 title bid hit a snag.<\/p>\nHe triggered one of six red flags in qualifying after slamming into the barriers during Q3, leaving him ninth on the grid.<\/p>\n
His Sunday went no better, jumping the start and briefly going into anti-stall before a recovery drive ended with another heavy hit into the Turn 5 wall.<\/p>\n
Doornbos suggested the meltdown may have stemmed from tension at Monza a week earlier, where Piastri lost points to teammate and title rival Lando Norris after a slow pit stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s striking this happened just after Monza, where there was a bit of friction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPiastri had to give away six points to Norris because he had a slow pitstop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a strange situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dutchman added that with McLaren\u2019s pit stop issues resurfacing in Baku, the pressure only grew as Max Verstappen slashed the championship gap with consecutive victories.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is danger,\u201d Doornbos warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcLaren makes so many mistakes, both with the drivers and during pitstops. That\u2019s still astonishing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doornbos also pointed to past examples of dramatic title swings as a reminder that the fight is far from finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Max wins everything, and Piastri always finishes third, Max wins the title. It\u2019s possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2013 Sebastian Vettel won the last nine races for Red Bull and became champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything is possible, Abu Dhabi has seen crazier finales.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri leads teammate Lando Norris by 25 points and Verstappen by 69 with seven rounds of the championship remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Webber has given his take on Oscar Piastri’s messy weekend in Baku. Image: XPB Images Doornbos, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,98125,817,813,816,859,913,2333,85],"class_list":["post-167239","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-mark-webber","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167239","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=167239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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