Piastri turned broken Sao Paulo GP into ‘rare’ test session

Oscar Piastri says he turned his Sao Paulo Grand Prix into a full-scale test session after he became the unwilling victim of the race’s start-line crash.

Piastri launched his race from tenth on the grid and was running just ahead of the trio of drivers – Nico Hulkenberg, Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen – that triggered the commotion and clash on the run down to Turn 1.

Sandwiched between Magnussen and Albon, Hulkenberg tagged the latter, pitching the Williams driver into his Haas teammate’s car which was then propelled into the rear of Piastri’s McLaren.

Both Albon and Magnussen were out on the spot while Hulkenberg emerged unscathed from the melee.

However, Piastri’s MCL60 was damaged in the contact, to the point where his team told him upon his return to the pits that they would retire the car.

But race control’s decision to red flag the race offered McLaren’s crews a chance to repair the Aussie’s machine in time for the event’s restart.

• Read also: F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2023 Sao Paulo GP

As they dug in, team papaya’s mechanics succeeded in replacing the MCL60’s floor and rear wing, but they were unable to change the car’s damaged rear brake duct winglets which would entail a “significant lap time disadvantage” according to McLaren team boss Andrea Stella.

Unfortunately, as Piastri’s car had been rolled back from the pitlane into its box to allow for McLaren to conduct repairs, the Aussie was counted as being a lap down on the field and imposed a pitlane start, a fate that also befell AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo.

“I hit the brakes for Turn 1, I looked in the mirror, and I saw someone’s tyre flying through the air and I thought that didn’t look very good,” Piastri said, quoted by Speedcafe, as he recounted his tumultuous start.

“Sure enough, I got an impact after that. It’s a shame. Of course, there was nothing I could have done.

“But when you qualify in those kinds of positions, you leave yourself much more at risk to stuff like that. It all starts on Friday, unfortunately.

“After that, I tried to stay on the lead lap and learn as much as I could because it’s not been the easiest of weekends.

“But thanks to the amazing efforts from everyone to get the car back together in 20 minutes, which was no mean feat, I got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

“So I learned a lot, just in general, but also for when I come back next year.”

While his day of racing was over, Piastri reckoned that 70 laps could indeed be put to good use to test and experiment.

“After yesterday there were some things I wanted to try and improve, and I experimented with that a lot,” he added. “Some things were successful, some not.

“But it’s very rare you get an opportunity to try things like that.

“Of course, I would have preferred the opportunity hadn’t come up in the first place, but when it’s there, you’ve got to try and capitalise on it with the lack of testing we have.”

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