McLaren’s home hero Oscar Piastri didn’t even make it to the starting grid of the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday after crashing out on his first practice lap.
The heartbreaking moment occurred just four turns into his first lap of the circuit, as the cars made their way to the grid 40 minutes before the start of the opening race of the 2026 season.
In a shocking turn of events, Piastri tried to shift up gears on the exit of the corner, only to lose control of his McLaren and careen into the wall.
He smashed his front wing and lost the entirety of his nose cone before coming to a stop on the grass alongside the grandstand, while thousands of fans looked on stunned.
The majority of the Albert Park crowd in Melbourne were decked out in McLaren colors to see their man in action, but he didn’t even make it to the starting grid before disaster struck.
After reassuring his team – and those watching – that he was okay, Piastri could be seen standing up and exiting the car, before walking across the grass and back toward the pit lane.
En route, he was met by Alpine’s comms chief James Lloyd, who helped out a rival team by ushering cameras away and asking them to give the distraught driver some space.
On the grid ahead of the race, McLaren CEO Zak Brown told Sky Sports: ‘We’ve not seen anything on the data so far and he didn’t say anything on the radio, so we’ll do a postmortem after the race and see what happened.
‘For now we’ve got to focus on the car we have in the race and get the excitement levels back up. Let’s see what happens now. I’m sure he’ll [Oscar] be sore about that one for a while.’
F1 icon Martin Brundle, meanwhile, admitted he ‘had tears in his eyes’ watching the events unfold before the race.
The first race of the season – and of the new ruleset – is expected to bring plenty of chaos when it gets underway in Melbourne.
