{"id":925747,"date":"2026-10-12T19:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T19:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925747\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T19:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T19:20:12","slug":"oscar-piastri-on-his-singapore-puncture-ironically-it-probably-helped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925747\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: \u201cIronically, it probably helped\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri<\/a> believes his Singapore Grand Prix puncture actually helped him overtake Lewis Hamilton<\/a> for fifth place in Sunday\u2019s Formula 1 race.<\/p>\n

Piastri lay a lonely sixth \u2013 20 seconds down on third-placed Hamilton and seven seconds adrift of team-mate Lando Norris<\/a> \u2013 when the virtual safety car was called into action on lap 39 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, as Lance Stroll<\/a> pulled aside due to a clutch issue.<\/p>\n

Despite having the oldest tyres of any frontrunner by some margin, Hamilton decided to stay out on worn soft rubber. So did Piastri, whose medium tyres were 15 laps younger, but a slow puncture actually forced the McLaren<\/a> driver into a second stop on lap 41.<\/p>\n

Piastri rejoined on soft rubber, with a 37-second deficit to Hamilton, but was two seconds a lap quicker and bridged that gap by the antepenultimate lap. The Ferrari<\/a> racer staunchly defended his position but was powerless at the end of that 44-lap stint with the red-walled compound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was definitely the most we could have done, we didn’t have the pace to do any more. Obviously, here is a massive track-position race,\u201d Piastri pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like personally, I did a pretty good job. Obviously, the puncture was a bit of a shame, but ironically, it actually probably helped. I got Lewis at the end, so there is a silver lining to everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Oscar <\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, McLaren<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Following up on his overtake, the Australian added: \u201cIt was tough, because also, once you get there, it doesn’t take much to overheat the tyres and you kind of get stuck at their pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut with how quickly I was catching, I would have been pretty disappointed in myself if I didn’t get past. So, a bit of excitement, which was good, because otherwise it was a pretty lonely race.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the reason for the slow puncture was yet to be elucidated and the squad would look into it with tyre supplier Pirelli.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s honestly a pretty unusual event,\u201d Stella commented. \u201cLike, it’s the first time that I hear about a slow puncture this year. It didn’t cost very much to Oscar today, but in a closer race, it could have been a significant loss of time, so definitely something that we need to get on top of. I don’t think that this is a team-dependent kind of issue. But ideally, it doesn’t happen for any competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri\u2019s \u201cpretty lonely race\u201d marked his 13th consecutive grand prix without a podium finish \u2013 his worst streak since the beginning of his rookie season in 2023.<\/p>\n

The 2025 title contender had collected 28 top-three results across his previous 57 starts.<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri believes his Singapore Grand Prix puncture actually helped him overtake Lewis Hamilton for fifth place in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,493341,823,114904,913,2333,493340,37177,85],"class_list":["post-925747","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-it-probably-helpedu201d","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-marina-bay-street-circuit","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-oscar-piastri-on-his-singapore-puncture-u201cironically","tag-singapore-gp","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925747","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=925747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}