The McLaren driver finished 11th after sustaining front wing damage in early contact with Liam Lawson, forcing him into a Lap 2 stop that compromised the rest of his afternoon.
Piastri had initially made a strong launch and moved ahead of teammate Lando Norris, only to be squeezed between the Racing Bulls cars of Lawson and Arvid Lindblad on the run towards Turn 6.
McLaren did not bring him in at the end of the opening lap, with the team later explaining it did not have enough footage available at the time to properly assess the damage.
Once the scale of the issue became clearer, Piastri was called in at the end of Lap 2 for a nose change and hard tyres, dropping him to the rear of the field and leaving him with a long recovery drive.
Asked what had happened at the start, Piastri said the race had effectively been undone by the three-wide moment.
“I got sandwiched by the Racing Bulls on the on the way to Turn 6 three wide down the straight and three into one didn’t work,” Piastri told Sky Sports.
Although the Australian showed solid pace once in clean air, he could only climb back to 11th, narrowly missing out on points on a difficult day for McLaren.
Norris salvaged fourth for the team after taking advantage of late drama for Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen, backing up his sprint race podium on Saturday to leave Silverstone with a strong haul of points.
Piastri admitted McLaren did not have the pace to challenge the leading teams, with Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull all ahead on outright performance across the weekend.
“I mean we weren’t great obviously. But we knew that from pretty early on,” he said.
View this post on Instagram
“I think being such a step behind was a little bit of a surprise for us, but in some ways also not, because I think we expected Ferrari to be quick in Austria, and they weren’t.
“And here wasn’t a huge surprise that they were quick. The fact that they were able to go and win the race was a bit surprising, but we felt like they were definitely a step ahead of us.
“So that’s where we are.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri’s race had been ruined by the early incident, while conceding the team’s fourth-place finish with Norris was better than its pure pace deserved.
“Today’s Grand Prix is a welcome result with good points overall for the team, but we are under no illusions about where we stand. We were the fourth-fastest car out there, and we benefited from the misfortune of others,” Stella said.
“Therefore, today’s result was a mixed bag for the team. We are pleased to come away with a fourth-place finish for Lando, which is beyond what we felt we deserved on pure pace.
“The strategy team did an excellent job though with the late stop, and Lando drove well to capitalise on the opportunities that arose during the race.
“Unfortunately, Oscar’s race was ruined on the first lap after being involved in an accident that damaged his front wing, preventing him from scoring any points.
“The clearest takeaway from this weekend is that we must improve the performance of the car. We have a consistent gap to the front-runners that we need to close if we are to be in contention for podiums and wins, which is our ultimate goal.
“We have some major upgrades planned for Hungary, and until then, the entire team trackside and at the factory must continue to work hard and maximise every opportunity.”
Norris was also blunt about McLaren’s pace despite his fourth-place finish, saying the result was more about execution than car speed.
“I mean from a points perspective this weekend’s been pretty good. I’m pretty happy,” Norris said.
“The results have been pretty amazing. I’ve been happy with the P3 yesterday and the P4 today. On the contrary, the pace was pretty shocking.
“Really not happy with the car and how it was today. So it makes me even happier the fact that we finished P4.
“But we just stayed out of trouble. We avoided mistakes. Reliability was good. So the things that were important were good. But the car was just so difficult today. So we have a hell of a lot to improve.”
McLaren’s attention now turns to closing the gap to the front before its planned major upgrade package arrives at the Hungarian Grand Prix later this month.
Discussion about this post