Piastri laments “driving mistakes” in Canada

Despite being in the thick of the fight, Oscar Piastri missed out on points in Canada where the Aussie believes driving errors proved costly.

Piastri started ninth and rose to as high as sixth, but fell just six tenths short of points in 11th behind Valtteri Bottas in the Canadian Grand Prix.

The Aussie was promoted to 11th after crossing the line 12th due to a five-second penalty handed to Norris for “bad sportsmanship behaviour”.

Despite both cars making Q3, neither McLaren could score points for the second successive Grand Prix.

Piastri lamented “driving mistakes” for costing himself a shot at a third career points finish.

“It’s a shame to come up just short of the points as it was looking promising for a while,” Piastri said. 

“I was going well in the early parts of the race but then we just didn’t have the pace or the tyre life to sustain it and I made some mistakes here and there letting some people back through.

“Ultimately they cost us a spot in the points which is a bit of a shame.”

The race started strong for Piastri, who qualified ninth despite an encounter with the wall in qualifying.

He won the battle for track position against Norris by taking the inside line through Turn 2 in to sit seventh.

Car #81 then soared to sixth by getting ahead of Nico Hulkenberg with a late-braking move.

After stopping to swap from Mediums to Hards under the early Safety Car on Lap 12, Piastri dropped to 10th as six cars stayed out including Bottas.

To make matters worse for Piastri, he came under attack by his teammate, who got him with a big late-braking lunge at the hairpin.

He then found himself squabbling with the Williams of Alex Albon, who swapped places twice in as many laps at the Wall of the Champions after replicating each other’s mistakes with the McLaren prevailing.

By lap 25 Piastri was back in the points flying past Kevin Magnussen down the pit straight, but after boxing for a second and final time on Lap 38 he was 13th.

This became 12th after George Russell’s retirement and eventually 11th thanks to the Norris penalty, but Piastri’s final stint was far from quiet having to fend off Pierre Gasly at the chequered flag.

Despite the near miss, Piastri said there were still plenty of reasons to smile with a strong first stint and overall better speed than Spain.

“The first stint was very good. I made some good moves and the pace felt very good,” he said.

“I was also happy with how I managed to tyres as best I could, but it was not to be.

“The next couple were not as good from a pace point of view. We struggled a little bit with tyre life.

“I still learnt a lot with all the mixed conditions and a new track for me.

“I think our race pace was definitely better than Barcelona so we can be more positive.”

Formula 1 fires up again in Austria on June 30-July 2.

Photo by Jake Grant / LAT Images

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