Oscar Piastri was involved in an unusual accident and was left without a Grand Prix
The Australian crashed on the lap he was traveling to the grid after leaving the pits and thus ended his home race.
The thousands of Australians who filled the Albert Park circuit were left speechless. From early on, television images showed the shirts with the number 81 in the stands and in the parade of drivers the roar could be heard: “Oscar, Oscar.” Oscar is Oscar Piastri, the driver who led a good part of the 2025 World Championship with McLaren and who fought for the crown. Everyone predicted a victory for his local credit in the Australian GP, but Piastri’s time in Melbourne ended before he left!
After the parade and Piastri received the pampering of his audience, he went to his box, put on his sweatshirt and a while later he got on his MCL40 to go out for those laps of the open pits that the drivers have as a facility before parking on the grid and beginning with the classic protocol of each Grand Prix. The Australian started calmly, with a slow pace and, upon reaching the fourth corner, he climbed onto the curb and lost control of the car.
The McLaren spun, crossed the track and ended up crashing heavily into the wall.. Result: total breakage of the right front suspension, nose and pontoon. Piastri got out of the car and walked back. “Totally unexpected. We didn’t see anything strange in the data,” said Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren.
In the midst of a new era of Formula 1, with the power units that are under criticism from the drivers for the electrical system, some may have suspected a software failure, like the one Max Verstsappen experienced in qualifying. But the team’s priest lowered that option. It was a mistake.
Piastri’s mistake brought to mind Verstappen’s accident in the open pit laps of the 2020 Hungarian GP. The Red Bull mechanics performed the miracle of repairing the car in the middle of the grid and the Dutchman reached the podium. In the case of the Australian it was impossible due to the level of breaks.
There’s no point, Australia has a strange halo with its own drivers: a local team has never won in the F1 GP. And for Piastri it was a new disappointment after in 2025 he suffered a mistake on the rain-wet track while fighting for success and got bogged down in the grass until he managed to get it out. The ninth place a year ago was a very minor award for the expectations that Oscar had. 2026 was even worse. The fifth place on the grid that he had reserved, he finally failed to occupy.
