Oscar Piastri revealed on social media during the F1 summer break that he’d been racing with a broken rib.
An x-ray dated July 8, the day after the British Grand Prix, revealed the injury which was kept under wraps until Piastri shared it online.
It meant the Australian was suffering from the broken bone when he claimed his maiden grand prix win at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“The scan was the day after Silverstone, but it was definitely broken before Silverstone,” Piastri admitted.
The British Grand Prix was the third leg of a triple-header which began in Spain and took in the Austrian GP as well.
There was then just a week off before back-to-back races in Hungary and Belgium in a gruelling run of five races in six weeks prior to the summer break.
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It was that busy tempo and an ill-fitting seat that likely led to the injury.
“You could say we put so much downforce on the car,” Piastri joked when asked what caused the break.
“But just from driving.
“You make the seat, obviously, at the start of the year and sometimes you get it a little bit wrong.
“Some tracks don’t expose it, but I think going from Barcelona, Austria, Silverstone, three pretty hardcore tracks…
“Yeah, just a bit of a pressure point which, eventually, my rib gave up.
“But it’s all good enough now. Change the seat and fixed it immediately, pretty much.”
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Piastri is uncertain whether the break occurred in Silverstone or the Red Bull Ring, though suggests the latter is more likely.
He admitted to battling through the British Grand Prix weekend before adjustments for Hungary saw his condition in the car improve.
“Definitely it was at some point in around Austria,” Piastri said when asked where the injury occurred.
“I think it was probably a bit disturbed in Barcelona and in Austria afterwards it was pretty painful.
“Silverstone was a pretty nasty few days.
“But we made some changes and it was already getting better, even with driving.
“We identified what we could change on the seat, and even with it bring broken the pain subsided a lot once we changed a few things,” he added.
“It was getting better. Even with driving around Budapest and Spa, it was not getting any worse – it was actually getting better.”
With time away out of the car courtesy of the mid-season shutdown, Piastri heads into this weekend’s Dutch GP fully fit once more.
He also goes in among the favourites, with McLaren set to introduce an upgrade package as it continues its bid to run down Red Bull Racing in the constructors’ championship.
“We’ve not really had an upgrade since Miami,” noted Lando Norris.
“We’ve added little things to the car, but nothing which is really, I would say in our terms – probably most people’s terms would be called an update – it’s just kind of one in between, like small little steps forward but nothing which is a pure step of performance.
“We’ve seen other teams put things on the car and did not necessarily work,” he added.
“We wanted to make sure we avoided that, so we were patient.
“I think we paid the price the last couple races, even though we’ve had some great races compared to some of our competitors with the upgrades they’ve been bringing.”
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