Piastri's baffling double lock-up costs McLaren driver Azerbaijan podium from third

Oscar Piastri surrendered a near-certain podium at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku after a sudden, heavy lock-up at Turn 1 sent him straight on and tumbling from third to 15th in the closing laps — a result he described as “a bit weird” even after reflection.

The McLaren driver had been running third following the second safety-car restart, already having lost ground to Max Verstappen at the first restart, when Red Bull rookie Isack Hadjar began pressing him. Attempting to defend on the inside of Turn 1, Piastri locked both front wheels simultaneously and went straight on, rejoining near the back of the bunched-up field.

“I need to look, because it was a bit weird just locking up both fronts instantly like that,” Piastri said. “I didn’t think I did anything spectacular. Obviously I was on a different line to what I normally would be, defending. So I don’t know if I was on a crown in the road or something, but it certainly was a surprise to me.”

Piastri acknowledged that even without the error, holding off Hadjar would have been difficult. His medium tyres were heavily flat-spotted and he felt significantly less comfortable on them than on the softs he had run earlier. “I think potentially we could have been P4,” he said. “One thing is saying ‘we could have been’, and one thing is where you actually finish.”

The result was nonetheless one of the more encouraging weekends of the season for the 24-year-old Australian, who has struggled to extract pace from F1’s new 2026-specification machinery. He outqualified team-mate Lando Norris, equalling his best grid position of the year with third, and was in contention for his first podium since the Miami Grand Prix before the Turn 1 incident.

“Apart from one moment in the race, I feel like it’s been a weekend much more at the level I expect from myself,” Piastri said. “From that side of things, it’s been much more encouraging. Just, obviously, it’s pretty painful to not have anything to show for it yet.”

Piastri also offered a candid explanation of why the 2026 cars have demanded a different approach. “The previous cars, especially in the race, you drove at 99%,” he said. “You had to look after the tyres a little bit, and driving at 99% was the fastest way to drive. With these cars, it feels like you have to be at 101% all the time, and as soon as you can’t be, then you just haemorrhage lap time.”

He added that Baku had given him a clearer sense of the adjustments required to his driving style, even if the final standings offered little reward for the progress made.