The big surprise of the Melbourne weekend
The biggest surprise of the Australian GP weekend came even before the lights went out, when Oscar Piastri crashed heavily into the barriers, irreparably damaging his McLaren MCL40 after jumping on the curb at the exit of turn 4. An accident certainly not unseen in the dynamics of events, but definitely unusual considering that Piastri was not in the race or on a full-throttle qualifying lap, but was lining up on the starting grid of his home GP.
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Oscar Piastri has crashed and is OUT of the Australian Grand Prix before it begins 😮#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/5prGby7dNC
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 8, 2026
Oscar Piastri’s disappointment
“We need to evaluate carefully – explains a very disappointed Oscar Piastri to the official F1TV microphones, recounting the accident that knocked him out of the race in ‘his’ Melbourne, admitting a driving error but also leaving the door open to the hypothesis of a technical problem – but I think I used the curb a bit too much in that corner. From what we’ve already seen in the data, however, I think there was a particular reaction from the car, even if within the rules. Essentially, at the moment I downshifted I had 100 kW more electric power than I had had all weekend”.
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“At that point I had a lot of wheelspin with the rear tires – adds the 24-year-old McLaren driver – and, since I was already on the curb, it was a combination of negative factors that caused the accident. Obviously, it’s a very, very disappointing result. Does it hurt? Well, a lot. It’s a real shame for me. Of course, you never want things like this to happen anywhere, but even more so in your home race, which makes the situation even more unpleasant”. Thus, the curse continues, whereby none of the many Australian drivers who have raced in Formula 1 has ever managed to be a prophet in their own land. For Oscar Piastri, it is his first retirement in the Australian GP, while in the past he had achieved an eighth, a ninth, and a fourth place (in the 2024 edition) as his best results.
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