Sick Piastri just misses top 10 on trying Baku weekend
Monday, 1 May 2023
A stomach bug and finishing less than three seconds outside the points made the Azerbaijan Grand Prix a weekend Oscar Piastri will be keen to see the back of.
Australia's Oscar Piastri endured an uncomfortable, frustrating and ultimately fruitless weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the McLaren driver failing to add to his first world championship points earned in Melbourne by finishing in 11th place on Sunday.
Piastri's problems began well ahead of the Baku event, the 22-year-old suffering from a stomach illness that caused him to lose three kilograms and made eating more than "about four pieces of toast for the whole weekend" an impossibility.
Piastri qualified 10th on Friday, and finished in the same place in Saturday's 17-lap Sprint race, after which he was excused from media duties as his illness bit hard.
Sunday's Grand Prix began with Piastri hit by Alex Albon (Williams) on a messy first lap at Turn 2, and he spent 36 of the 51 laps stuck in a DRS train in 13th position, his lap nine pit stop taking three seconds after the left-rear tyre became stuck, and then a lap 10 safety car eliminating the chance to undercut some of his rivals at the tail-end of the points-paying positions.
Piastri spent the bulk of the race "lacking a bit of pace" as he sat beneath the rear wing of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda, who inherited the final world championship point when Alpine's Esteban Ocon pitted to discard the hard tyres he'd used from a lap one pit-lane start with one lap remaining.
Piastri said he "learned a lot about the tyres" in a frustrating race where he finished less than three seconds behind Tsunoda and a world championship point, the full stop on a weekend he's keen to put in the rear-view mirror.
"I need to get some food back in me before Miami," he said of next week's Grand Prix in Florida, quickly adding that his stomach bug wasn't the determining factor in his result.
"I felt a bit better this morning, which was good … through the race, it didn't impact me too much. There wasn't really much more we could do. Today's probably been the best I've felt all weekend, which isn't saying much.
"It's been very difficult, physically – especially yesterday was pretty rough. I'm a lot lighter than I was at the start of the weekend …".
Oscar's Azerbaijan Grand Prix by the numbers
Sprint (17 laps): Qualified 11th, finished 10th
Race (51 laps): Qualified 10th, finished 11th
Pit stops/tyres: Lap 9 (medium/hard)
Fastest lap: 1min 45.631secs (10th), lap 51
Points this event: 0
Points this season: 4 (11th in world championship)
