Oscar Piastri hits skid row and blames nobody but himself

It was lap 44 of 57 when Oscar Piastri came a cropper. In the McLaren garage, his mother yelled “No! No! No!”

Drivers take the start during the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne on Sunday. Picture: AFP

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Oscar Piastri skidded out of contention at the Australian Grand Prix and Melbourne cried. The rain tumbled as quickly as he plummeted down the leaderboard.

It was difficult to differentiate between the gasps of disappointment from Albert Park’s grandstands and rumbling thunder from hovering storms.

“It’s obviously pretty dis­appointing,” Piastri said after scratching and clawing to finish ninth. “I feel like every lap apart from one, I drove an incredibly strong race. It’s just a shame not to have the result to show for it. I obviously don’t have anyone to blame for it but myself.”

It was lap 44 of 57 when Piastri came a cropper. He was zooming along in second place behind his McLaren teammate, Englishman Lando Norris, the £20m Pom who eventually took the checkered flag in a fast, furious, wet and wild GP.

After six drivers, including Australia’s Jack Doohan and New Zealand’s Liam Lawson, crashed heavily and failed to finish, Piastri slipped left on to the gravel, careered back across the track and came to a sorrowful halt on a patch of muddy grass. He was bogged. In the McLaren garage, his mother yelled “No! No! No!”

Piastri was facing the wrong way, like a car glitching and doing 360s in a computer game, falling in the heaviest heartbeat to 15th.

Game over, dream over, fairytale extinguished.

He fought valiantly back, swooping past Ferrari’s legendary Lewis Hamilton with a daring high-speed move on the final lap, commendably earning two points in the world driver’s championship, but when his helmet came off there was no masking his abject disappointment.

Four of the cruellest words in the English language followed the Melburnian back to his hotel.

What might have been.

“I think it was probably a bit unfortunate to get stuck on the grass the way I did,” he said. “But it was only myself that put me there. The big positive is the other 56 laps of the race, I had strong pace in all conditions. That’s what I’ll try to take away from the weekend.”

Race winner Lando Norris celebrates with his family at Albert Park on Sunday in Melbourne. Picture: Getty Images

Norris emerged from the bedlam with victory from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell and yet a Piastri victory had been on the cards and everyone’s lips.

He was consistently clocking quicker laps than Norris, sticking to Norris like a dog with a bone, pegging the deficit centimetre by centimetre, lap by lap, a tenth of a second by a tenth of a second.

It promised to be the most enjoyable of Sunday afternoon drives, a podium at worst, but his first sign of trouble came when McLaren’s controversial “papaya” team rules again became an issue.

Mid-race, Piastri was told to stay second behind Norris. Clearly displeased, he told his garage, “I’m faster, but OK.”

On lap 32, McLaren boss Zak Brown had a change of heart; Piastri was told the new rule of engagement. He was “free to race” but calamity and Australia’s curse of Albert Park were about to strike.

Oscar Piastri in the grass pit after losing control of his car on Sunday. Picture: Formula 1

No! No! No! Rain returned like gentle teardrops. Piastri couldn’t get to the pits in time to switch his slick tyres for wets.

Then came the screeching skid from hell, the rumbles of disappointment and thunder, babies crying, wolves howling, someone should have tolled a bell. Melbourne’s teardrops became torrential.

If Shakespeare was your correspondent, he might record conditions as “the rough winds and hurricanoes,” the sort of weather that could sink a fleet of Sydney to Hobart yachts. It was cold.

Folks were dressed in hoodies, ponchos and mittens as though heading to Thredbo.

Lando Norris crosses the finish line ahead of Max Verstappen to win the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. Picture: AFP

Devastated Frenchman Isack Hadjar crashed his Racing Bulls car in the formation lap.

It was so wet the safety car nearly required a safety car. So wet these 130,000 diehard spectators deserved a medal for attendance.

Give ‘em all an Oscar, even if Oscar couldn’t give them what they really wanted.

Chaos was expected, chaos eventuated.

Alpine’s Doohan crashed in the first lap. Williams’ Carlos Sainz, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Red Bull’s Lawson all failed to finish.

Perhaps Piastri would do a Steven Bradbury. Instead, he was Apolo Ohno, a certain medallist who hit skid row.