Oscar Piastri has admitted he shouldn’t have used the kerb that led to his Sprint race retirement in Brazil after enduring a “bizarre” qualifying session that left him only fourth on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Piastri will start on the second row alongside Charles Leclerc after Lando Norris secured pole and Kimi Antonelli in second after rebounding from a premature exit in the Sprint race earlier in the day.
Oscar Piastri details Sprint crash amid ‘weird’ Brazilian GP weekend
It’s been a mixed weekend in Interlagos for the Australian after showing solid pace in opening practice before crashing out in the Sprint while running third.
The McLaren driver spun up his rear wheels exiting Turn 2 after six laps of the Sprint, which saw the back of the car spin around and deposit him in the barrier on the outside of Turn 3.
He was joined there by Nico Hulkenberg and Franco Colapinto, who were similarly caught out moments later.
“I used it a little bit the lap before,” Piastri said of the kerb that ultimately ended his Sprint.
“Looking back at the lap, I think a couple of the guys ahead also used it and potentially put a bit more water where I went.
“Probably shouldn’t have been on the kerb anyway, but I think the track was in a different state to the lap before as well – and clearly I wasn’t the only one that got caught out by that.
“It was a little bit wide, but nothing major,” he added of his line.
“And I took the same line as the cars ahead, or certainly one of the cars ahead, and unfortunately, the consequences were, were a lot bigger.
“It clearly splashed up quite a lot of water when that happened.
“Again, I probably shouldn’t have been on the kerb, but a bit unfortunate that the consequences were so high.”
Piastri’s retirement and Norris’s win in the Sprint saw the gap between the title rivals widen to nine points.
However, the Melburnian moved to put that disappointment out of his mind ahead of qualifying.
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“I kind of went through it all and assessed what happened,” he explained.
“Once I was comfortable with what had happened, and you just go back into qualifying mode.
“The qualifying session itself wasn’t easy, a bit of a bizarre session and weekend with the soft tyre just not working for some reason.
“To have pretty much zero lap time improvement through Q1, Q2, and Q3 is quite weird.
“Just feels like things are not flowing that easily at the moment,” he added.
“I had pretty good confidence in the car yesterday. Today felt like it was a bit trickier for everybody, and I just struggled to get the most out of the car.”
Piastri’s final lap in Q3 was a 1:09.886s, a time 0.05s slower than he’d recorded in Q2, and less than a tenth quicker than his Qualifying 1 effort.
Across the garage, Norris clocked a 1:09.656s in the first segment, improving only slightly in Q2 (0.04s). Having run wide on his first Qualifying 3 lap, the championship leader recovered with a 1:09.511s, leaving him on pole by 0.174s.
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