- Aussie crashed into the barriers at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Oscar Piastri has crashed into the barriers and out of the final qualifying session at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix – yet his rare mistake could have proved much more costly.
Australia’s championship leader reckoned he had been pushing too hard on Baku’s testing street circuit in windy, rain-spattered conditions on Saturday when he went too fast into the apex of turn three and slammed his McLaren into the wall.
It left him qualifying in ninth – his worst effort of the season – but his teammate and nearest title challenger Lando Norris couldn’t take full advantage as he went flat-out for pole only to also have a slight brush with the wall himself on the way to finishing only seventh quickest.
Red Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen went on to take an immaculate pole – his sixth of the season – at the end of the crash-strewn, chaotic qualifying session which dragged on for nearly two hours and featured six red-flag stoppages in the difficult conditions.
‘I think I just braked a little bit late. I have not seen any data or anything, but it’s normally what happens when you end up locking your brake,’ sighed Piastri, whose brilliant career has been marked so far by an absence of such mistakes.
‘So, yeah, just disappointing. Obviously, I felt like the car was in a good place and it’s a disappointing way to end.’
Oscar Piastri has crashed into the barriers and out of the final qualifying session at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix
The Aussie went too fast into the apex of turn three and slammed his McLaren into the wall
Piastri, who won this race last year but who had looked uncomfortable all weekend on the tight circuit having also brushed the wall in practice on Friday, shrugged: ‘I think it was just a case of trying a little bit too hard and paying the price.’
Asked if he could still gain victory from ninth, he said: ‘I think the win is ambitious, but the car’s been quick this weekend, so hopefully we can use that to make some progress.’
While it’s unlikely he can win from ninth on a track that’s tricky to overtake on, Piastri can take encouragement from another former Australian grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo, who hit the barriers in qualifying in 2017 yet went on to win for Red Bull from 10th place.
Piastri, who hadn’t qualified outside the top-four all season before Saturday, is certainly not as badly off as he had expected to be immediately after the accident, when he was left looking shocked after clambering out of his stricken vehicle.
Thirty-one points ahead of Norris in the championship race, the Englishman would have had a golden opportunity to reduce the deficit substantially if he had subsequently got on to the front row.
Yet Norris wouldn’t accept that he had missed a big opportunity with his subsequent scrappy lap. ‘No, because I still did everything I could,’ he responded.
‘Sometimes it goes your way around here, sometimes it doesn’t.’
McLaren are still hoping to wrap up the constructors’ title with seven rounds to spare this weekend, the earliest the championship would ever have been won.
The crash left Piastri qualifying ninth – his worst effort of the season
Yet with the gusts in the ‘City of Wind’ and occasional spots of rain having made life difficult for all the drivers, Piastri wasn’t the only one to trigger a red flag, with Alex Albon, Nico Hulkenberg, Franco Colapinto, Oliver Bearman and Charles Leclerc also crashing.
‘I wish everyone could understand how difficult it was with the wind,’ Norris explained.
Hence the surprising looking grid lineup with Carlos Sainz putting his Williams on the front row alongside the four-time world champion Verstappen, while Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson qualified third with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli fourth in an all-rookie second row.
There was also more misery for Lewis Hamilton, who admitted he was shocked to qualify only 12th after believing he’d be shooting for pole.
