Piastri Monaco damage worth ‘half a second’

That’s the suggestion of McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, who revealed how badly Piastri’s car was damaged on the opening lap.

The Australian was tagged by Carlos Sainz at Sainte Devote, cutting the Ferrari’s tyre and damaging the sidepod and floor of the McLaren.

While Piastri was able to continue, Sainz pulled off with a puncture at Casino Square, his race saved by the crash between Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen, and Nico Hulkenberg that drew the red flag.

Having returned to the pits, Ferrari bolted on a fresh set of tyres as Sainz reclaimed third spot for the restart.

Meanwhile, at McLaren, the team replaced the righthand sidepod and repaired what it could of his damaged floor, minimising the impact of the clash as best it could.

“As soon as the collision happened, we observed the 20 [aerodynamic] points down, which here in Monaco is about half a second,” Stella revealed.

“Thanks to the red flag, we were in condition to make some repairs to the floor because the side wing of the floor was broken.

“So we repaired it – we didn’t fix it entirely – and we changed the sidepod that was broken as well.”

Those repairs kept Piastri in the race and allowed him to remain in contact with leader Charles Leclerc for much of the encounter.

However, with his car still wounded, he was unable to go with the leading Ferrari as he increased his pace in the latter stages.

“Overall, the deficit was about 10 points for the entire race, which is a couple of tenths, maybe two and a half tenths, and obviously made us a bit more nervous about the possibility to keep the tyres in a good situation, in a good condition,” Stella explained.

“But Oscar managed to do that, and ultimately, the damage was not influential for the final result.”

Piastri admitted that, from the cockpit, he didn’t notice any difference with the car for much of the race.

In the latter stages, however, he did begin to experience the effects as his tyres wore.

“For the first half of the race, it was impossible to tell what the penalty of that was,” he said of the damage.

“Towards the end, I think probably a combination of trying to keep the pace reasonably quick, plus the floor… just struggled a bit towards the end.”

Piastri finished second in Monaco, seven seconds back from Leclerc after starting alongside him on the front row – his first podium of the season and the third of his F1 career.