Piastri accepts Mexico penalty but calls Turn 1-2 guidelines 'tricky' to enforce

Oscar Piastri has accepted his 10-second penalty for colliding with Arvid Lindblad at the Mexico City Grand Prix, but the McLaren driver argued that the FIA’s driving standards guidelines are poorly suited to corners with immediate changes of direction, such as the Mexican circuit’s opening complex.

Piastri had moved his McLaren around the outside of Lindblad’s Racing Bulls into Turn 1, aiming to claim the inside line for the immediate approach of Turn 2. Both drivers held their lines, and the resulting contact sent Lindblad’s rear-left wheel into Piastri’s front right, launching the Racing Bulls into the exit wall and ending Lindblad’s race on the spot. The incident triggered a safety car, and Piastri was classified 13th after the field bunched up — a costly drop from the seventh place he would otherwise have secured.

The FIA’s driving standards guidelines require a driver on the outside of a corner to have their front axle level with that of the defending car to be entitled to racing room. Piastri acknowledged that standard was met in this case, but questioned whether it translates cleanly to multi-apex sequences.

“I think looking at the guidelines, it’s kind of hard to argue against the penalty,” Piastri said. “But I think that set of corners in Mexico, that’s where the guidelines are very tricky to enforce. Every corner’s slightly different, every sequence of corners especially, and yeah it kind of feels like when your only option to avoid an incident is to cut the track, you’re not left in a great place.”

Piastri also acknowledged Lindblad’s right to defend. “I think Arvid was very robust. I think if you look at the guidelines he had the right to [defend]. I think also for myself I had the right to try and make that move stick until the point where I tried to back out, which is when we collided.”

The penalty compounded a difficult run for McLaren in the constructors’ championship. The team had already fallen behind Red Bull after Austin, and the gap to the Milton Keynes outfit has now stretched to 17 points heading into the São Paulo Grand Prix.

McLaren arrives in Brazil with a revised front wing, a component intended to feed into the development programme for its 2027 car while also addressing handling balance in the current MCL41. Both Piastri and his team-mate have acknowledged that the 2026 McLaren requires forceful inputs to reach its performance window, and Piastri is hopeful the new parts can produce a more balanced feel. His stated ambition for São Paulo is straightforward: a cleaner weekend.