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Oscar Piastri has conceded his São Paulo Grand Prix turned into nothing more than a glorified test session, but one he is grateful for given the “rare opportunity” it afforded the McLaren driver.
Piastri was one of the unfortunate casualties of the heavy crash on the run-up to Turn 1 involving Williams’ Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen in his Haas, resulting in a debris-strewn Interlagos and a rogue tyre from the FW45 flying down the straight.
AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo was fortunate not to be struck by the tyre as he made his way through the incident, with the Pirelli rubber bouncing off his rear wing.
As for Piastri, in attempting to avoid the wreckage himself, he was hit by another car, resulting in damage to the rear wing, floor, and rear brake duct winglets on his MCL60.
Initially, after making his way back to the pits at the end of the first lap, he was told the damage was too great and they would have to retire the car.
Once the race was red-flagged, it afforded the team the opportunity to carry out repairs and send him back out, albeit with a pit-lane start and a lap down.
Team principal Andrea Stella has confirmed that whilst the floor and wing could be repaired, they were unable to do so with the winglets, meaning Piastri was “carrying a significant lap-time disadvantage”.
It resulted in him finishing 14th, last of those who were classified, and two laps down on race-winner Max Verstappen in his Red Bull.
Explaining the race start, and indicating what unfolded was as a result of qualifying on Friday evening, Piastri said: “I hit the brakes for Turn 1, I looked in the mirror, and I saw someone’s tyre flying through the air and I thought that didn’t look very good.
“Sure enough, I got an impact after that. It’s a shame. Of course, there was nothing I could have done.
“But when you qualify in those kinds of positions (10th), you leave yourself much more at risk to stuff like that. It all starts on Friday, unfortunately.
“After that, I tried to stay on the lead lap and learn as much as I could because it’s not been the easiest of weekends.
“But thanks to the amazing efforts from everyone to get the car back together in 20 minutes, which was no mean feat, I got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
“So I learned a lot, just in general, but also for when I come back next year.”
For Piastri, the remainder allowed him to conduct several experiments he hopes will stand him in good stead for the future.
“After yesterday (Saturday sprint shootout and sprint) there were some things I wanted to try and improve, and I experimented with that a lot,” added Piastri. “Some things were successful, some not.
“But it’s very rare you get an opportunity to try things like that.
“Of course, I would have preferred the opportunity hadn’t come up in the first place, but when it’s there, you’ve got to try and capitalise on it with the lack of testing we have.”
