Credit to Oscar Piastri. He’s always shown maturity beyond his years, but in his heartbreaking finish to last year’s championship, and in again watching his hopes of winning his home grand prix slip away, he’s refused to shy away from what has gone awry.
“We had a bit of an issue out of the pits with no battery, basically,” he told reporters about the crash which happened as he headed to the grid to start the race.
“With the actual crash, there was a combination of a couple of things [at play] – it was a large element of just me, cold tyres… I also had 100 kilowatts more power than I expected, so you put all of those together and, unfortunately, it ends in the result we got.
“It’s obviously just disappointing and a scenario that shouldn’t be happening.”
Piastri also spoke about the phrase of the day – “torque spike” – what it means, and how it impacted his car.
“In mine [my case], specifically, there’s a lot of rules about how the power units have to work, and, essentially, I was at less throttle [percentage applied] than what I was in qualifying, and the way the rules kind of stipulate how the torque demand has to work. I actually got 100 kilowatts more power than if I would have been full-throttle.”
Balancing that sudden explosion of power – between the hybrid electric and internal combustion parts of the power units – will be an issue all season.
Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris also spoke after finishing fifth – largely staying out of trouble from the get-go.
“We finished where we deserved to – it’s quite clear the Red Bulls are a lot quicker. Max [Verstappen] came from last and almost beat us,” he said.
“We’re a long way off – a very, very long way off, and we have a lot of work to do.
“This is nothing that’s going to happen overnight, or one or two weeks’ time.
“Ferrari, from what we see, quite clearly have the best car – their cornering speeds are unbelievable. For us to match that is impossible.”