McLaren explains 100kW spike behind Piastri crash

Piastri failed to start his home event after spinning into the concrete wall at the exit of Turn 4 during a reconnaissance lap to the grid.

The 24-year-old explained he was caught out by a 100kW power spike that kicked in as he touched the kerb.

Piastri added that the “most difficult part to take” was that “it’s just a function of how the engines have to work with the rules”.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella gave a detailed explanation of the reasons behind the crash following the race.

“What we observe I think is fundamentally three factors,” he said.

“The cold tyres, therefore when the wheelspin starts, it starts in a very sudden way.

“This compounds with being on a kerb. It’s a kerb that he has used pretty much every single lap. Kerbs don’t make this easier though when the tyres are cold.

“This further compounds with the oscillations [from the kerb] and following the [gear] shift, there’s extra torque, let’s say, that when we look at the behaviour of the power unit, it’s sort of expected to happen like that.

“But it’s not something that you would do unless it’s, which I understand is the case, some requirements that you need to meet in terms of how you deploy your torque

“In testing we might have seen some similar circumstances, but we didn’t have the combination of cold tyres and a kerb which aggravated the fact you may have these inconsistencies from torque deployment in grip limited phases.”

Piastri’s accident followed what appeared a similar incident involving Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli in Free Practice 3 on Saturday while under power at the exit of Turn 2.

Max Verstappen also pointed to the new regulations after his qualifying crash, albeit that occurred under braking for Turn 1.

Stella was cautious on discussing the other crashes without detailed knowledge of their cause, but said the torque deployment needs to be reviewed in the name of safety.

“Certainly, these power units can be quite aggressive when they release all the power,” he said.

“We talk about 1000 horsepower coming all together, and when the tyres may be a little bit on the cold side, or if this power comes in an unpredictable way, like it happened to Oscar, then it can become very tricky.

“I don’t want to be here and saying I have an easy solution, I don’t, but I’m here saying we should look into the regulations.

“The accidents you mentioned, they are kind of not a near miss, they are a very material indication that there’s work to do, so we should do this work as an F1 community.”

Stella also pointed to race starts, the speed differential of cars on track due to battery deployment and overtaking as areas for review following the season opener.