Oscar Piastri admitted he was to blame for his “messy weekend” in Baku but said there was a “silver lining” after crashing out on the first lap.
The McLaren driver lined up ninth on the grid after crashing in qualifying. His race ended quickly after he jumped the start, fell to the back of the field and skidded into a barrier at turn five.
“It was certainly not my finest moment,” Piastri told Sky. “I just anticipated the start too much and a silly, simple error really with that.
“Then the crash, I just didn’t anticipate the dirty air in the way I should have. I clearly went into the corner way too hot and that was that.”
Piastri said he was surprised by how little grip there was at the corner. “The grip level was low, but I should know that,” he admitted. “So I’m certainly not blaming it on anything other than myself.
“I just didn’t make the judgement calls that I needed to at the right time and that’s obviously disappointing.”
However Piastri felt happy with the potential pace he had in Baku and said he would be more worried if he had simply been uncompetitive over the weekend.
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“Friday was a tough day but I think on Saturday the potential was very good,” he said. “I had a lot of sequences or sectors that were incredibly strong and just never got it all together.
“Obviously qualifying yesterday was what it was and then today just more silly mistakes. So yes, it was certainly a messy weekend, for sure, but I would be more concerned if I was slow and trying to make up for it that way and causing and having these errors because of that.
“The fact that they’re just simple lapses in judgement, it’s obviously not a position I want to be in, or especially put the mechanics in because it’s been a rough weekend for them, but if I’m trying to find a silver lining then I suppose I have that.”
Piastri was given a five-second time penalty for jumping the start. Although he could not serve it during the race, he will not have to carry it over to the next grand prix under F1’s penalty guidelines.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said he is sure Piastri’s poor weekend will prove a “one-off” over the course of the season.
“I have experience of having worked with multi-champion drivers and days or weekends like this can happen in a season,” he said. “So far Oscar, I think, has been the most solid driver in the 2025 campaign. So a one-off race can happen and I’m sure this is also the moment where you get most of the learning for you to be stronger, to improve and keep the contention for the drivers’ championship in which he still remains the favourite.”
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