F1 world freaks out over Oscar Piastri photo post detail

Oscar Piastri said so much without needing to say anything with his first social media post following his Qatar Grand Prix nightmare.

Oscar Piastri said so much without needing to say anything with his first social media post following his Qatar Grand Prix nightmare.

The Australian has been forced to swallow a bitter pill after his team’s botched race strategy handed the race victory to reigning champ Max Verstappen on Monday morning.

The McLaren driver was a forlorn figure after the race and was lifeless in his post-race media interviews.

The most telling moment was immediately after the race when speaking to race engineer Tom Stallard on team radio.

“Speechless. I don’t have any words,” he said.

He said even less in his first social media post after the race as he shared a photo of himself holding a trophy during the post-race podium celebrations.

Oscar Piastri's fans were not used to seeing this. Photo: Instagram.

Tellingly, the 24-year-old did not include any caption when sharing the image.

The top comment on the post, which was “liked” more than 35,000 times read: “No caption says so much”.

The post looks particularly glaring for Piastri fans, who are accustomed to viewing Piastri’s post race posts with music and generally positive reflections.

That was not the case on Monday.

“The real tragedy here is that after all of that team incompetence he got someone’s used old exhaust pipe for a trophy,” one person posted on Reddit.

Another wrote: “Oh he’s maaaaad. Understandably”.

One person commented: “No caption and no house music. He is fuming. Feels like PR told him to make his mandatory post race post and this was all he got in him”.

Piastri could barely muster the energy needed to join in with Verstappen and Carlos Sainz as they popped the corks off their non-alcoholic champagne bottles at the end of the official post-race festivities.

Piastri looked a broken man at times as the dust began to settle on Verstappen’s victory.

The result means championship leader Lando Norris (408 points) has a 12 point advantage to Verstappen (396 points) and a 16 point advantage on Piastri.

With a total of 25 championship points still to fight for, Piastri will need to win next weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and have results fall his way.

If Piastri does win the season-ending race, Norris only needs to finish in the top six.

If Verstappen wins Sunday night’s race, Norris must finish on the podium to win the championship.

The cold reality that he now needs a miracle to win the championship appeared to his Piastri immediately after the race.

“Clearly we didn’t get it right tonight,” he said. “I drove the best race that I could and as fast as I could. There was nothing left out there.

“I tried my best but it wasn’t to be tonight unfortunately. I think in hindsight it’s pretty obvious what we would have done, but I’m sure we’ll discuss it as a team.

“It’s not all bad. It’s been a really good weekend and the pace has been very strong. Obviously it’s a little bit tough to swallow at the moment.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted the team got it wrong.

“We had the potential to win the race with Oscar, he deserved that. He was fastest in qualifying and the sprint,” he said.

“Certainly the podium was available for Lando but we lost the victory with Oscar and we lost the podium with Lando. Definitely not the outcome we wanted. Something we will review with the decision we made when there was the Safety Car on Lap 7.”

Oscar Piastri (left) wasn’t in the mood. Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)

Piastri was still bewildered when he spoke with Sky Sports much later after the race.

“I haven’t spoken to anyone but I feel pretty c**p as you can imagine,” he said.

“I don’t know what to say. We didn’t get it right with the strategy. The pace was very strong. I didn’t put a foot wrong. Just a shame.”

He also said the team understood why Piastri would have been “extremely disappointed”.

F1 guru Martin Brundle said Piastri was clearly the fastest driver in Qatar but McLaren’s pit stop blunder cost him the victory.

“Piastri is overall 14 seconds faster than Verstappen,” Brundle said on Sky Sports.

“You’d have to say in a normal race, Piastri had enough speed. But they rolled the dice behind the safety car compared to everyone else did McLaren, and that’s just left the road open. You don’t need to give Max Verstappen a second chance.”

After the race, Sky Sports host Simon Lazenby said: “Extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. McLaren’s worst nightmare has materialised. Papaya rules appears to have caught them out.”

Pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz said immediately after the race: “They are shell-shocked down here at McLaren. They don’t know what to say, they have gone down to the back of the garage.

“They said no interviews until after the podium. They need to go and understand, get their ducks in a row, and explain this all away.”

The team is still searching for an explanation.