Penalty-hit Piastri assesses ‘tough afternoon’ in Sao Paulo as he admits to ‘things we need to sort out’

Oscar Piastri has given his take on what proved to be a “tough afternoon” for him at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, the Australian having to settle for fifth after a 10-second time penalty for an early collision impacted his race.

After an early Safety Car phase, Piastri – who had started from fourth on the grid – attempted a move on Kimi Antonelli for second place into Turn 1 at the restart, but a lock-up saw the McLaren hit the Mercedes, sending the latter into the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

This put Leclerc out of the running, while Piastri and Antonelli both continued on. However, a 10-second time penalty was subsequently handed to Piastri for the incident, which the 24-year-old went on to serve when he pitted on Lap 39 of 71.

While he worked his way forwards again after this dropped him back, Piastri made another pit stop in the latter stages before trying to chase down Mercedes’ George Russell in a fight for fourth, but he ultimately could not catch the Briton.

Reflecting on his race – and his incident with Antonelli – Piastri said: “I got a really good Safety Car restart and went to the inside.

“I put myself up the inside pretty comfortably and there was obviously a bit of a lock-up, but I couldn’t go any further left than I already was – I can’t really just disappear. Then after that, not sure we made the right calls either, so a tough afternoon.”

Piastri’s fellow McLaren racer Lando Norris took victory at Interlagos, allowing the championship leader to further extend his advantage over his team mate to 24 points.

Asked for his thoughts on the weekend in general – as well as the title fight situation ahead of the final triple header of races – the driver from Melbourne explained: “I think in terms of the championship there’s no point thinking about it very much.

“There’s clearly some things we need to sort out. Just a tough weekend from a number of fronts, so I’ll focus on that instead.”