First lap contact hurts fighting Piastri

Although the dream of Oscar Piastri scoring points at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was dashed by an unlucky first-lap incident with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, he can still hold his head high.

After a sensational effort in qualifying to put the #81 McLaren in ninth, which became P8 on the starting grid, the Australian rookie had his sights set on a maiden points finish.

However, his hopes took a significant blow just two corners into the 50-lap race when the MCL60 lost a major part of the right-hand side of its front wing following contact with Gasly.

This forced the 21-year-old Melbourne youngster to require an immediate pit stop and complete the rest of the race on the same set of Hards.

Despite the drama, Piastri still completed an entire Grand Prix for the first time in his career and did so by beating his fancied teammate Lando Norris after a marathon stint on the Hard tyre.

Strong tyre management saw the Aussie able to move past both Norris and Williams’ Logan Sargeant in the closing stages to secure 15th.

Piastri said he was pleased to perform the comeback drive, but knew so much more could have been possible.

“Obviously it was not the ideal race with what happened on lap one,” he told F1.Com.

“But after that to do 49 laps on the Hard was a pretty good effort, they seemed to hang on well at the end, which was good.

Pierre Gasly collides with Oscar Piastri, which forced the australian to dive into the pits on the opening lap. Photo by Mark Sutton / Sutton Images

“Had some good experience overtaking in some wheel to wheel battles, which was nice.

“Not the race we were looking for, but still some positives from the good experience.”

On the first-lap moment itself, where Piastri lost a major element of his front wing that defined his race, he believes it was simply a racing incident. 

“I do not think it was anyone’s fault to be honest,” he said.

“It is just a tight Turn 2 and the contact was really small, I barely felt it and was quite surprised by the damage.

“But it happened and I will try to see if I could have done anything different.”

After his first F1 Grand Prix finish, Piastri hopes the support of hundreds of thousands of home fans can give him a boost at Albert Park on March 31-April 2.

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