Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Zandvoort, 2023

Piastri practice crash a “big consequence” for a little error

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In the round-up: Oscar Piastri admitted he “went in a little bit hot” when he crashed his McLaren at turn three.

In brief

Piastri crash a “big consequence” for a little error

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri said his crash at turn three during second practice was a “big consequence” for a slight misjudgement.

Biography: Liam Lawson
The rookie lost control of his car at the high banked third turn, hitting the barriers and ending is session. Moments later, Daniel Ricciardo also crashed after arriving on the scene of Piastri’s accident, breaking his hand in the process.

“I just went in a little bit hot,” Piastri explained of his accident. “I tried to turn in a bit aggressively and unfortunately found the wall.

“I guess it was going to happen at some stage. Of course you never want it to, but just pushing a little bit too hard. And around here, especially in that corner, you pay a big consequence if you overdo it a little bit. So I’ll try not to do it again and see what it can do for the rest of weekend.

AlphaTauri has announced Liam Lawson will substitute for the injured Ricciardo this weekend.

Hulkenberg cleared of impeding Verstappen

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Nico Hulkenberg avoided punishment by the stewards following an incident at the start of the second practice session where he appeared to impede Max Verstappen at the penultimate corner.

The championship leader was completing his first flying lap of the session but had to back off after coming across Hulkenberg’s Haas at the apex of turn 13. However, after investigating the incident, the stewards took no further action.

“The drivers agreed that Hulkenberg was affected by the cars in front of him and slowed, thereby impeding Verstappen,” the stewards explained. “However, as this was FP2, the drivers agreed that it did not rise to the standard of ‘Unnecessarily Impeding’. Further, as the closing speeds at this location are significant, the incident looked more dramatic than what it was, but the drivers agreed that it was not particularly dangerous.”

Crawford secures first F2 pole after three red flags

Jak Crawford will start on pole position for Sunday’s Formula 2 feature race after he secured the fastest time in qualifying following a chaotic end to the session.

Crawford had been on provisional pole before the session was red-flagged when Jehan Daruvala spun into the wall on the exit of turn three. When the session resumed, Dennis Hauger should have beaten Crawford’s time by milliseconds but his lap was cancelled when Juan Manuel Correa spun into the gravel at turn ten to bring out a second red flag. In the last minute, Clement Novalak ran wide at the exit of turn three, dislodging his front wing and triggering the session-ending final red flag.

Championship leader Theo Pourchaire will start today’s sprint race from reverse-grid pole after qualifying tenth in the session.

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Comment of the day

With Ricciardo out with a broken hand and near-certain to miss next weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, will he be back in the car at Singapore? BasCB isn’t so sure and sees a golden opportunity for Lawson…

I don’t think coming back for Singapore of all places (given how much turns and twists you have there) with a still hurting hand will do much good for Ricciardo. The comparison with Lance Stroll is not really equal, because we all know that if Lance weren’t the son of the team owner, they would have probably replaced him already.

I think it is a valid question. Just think about it. If Lawson can do halfway decent in Zandvoort, shows some promise at Monza and in Singapore, why wouldn’t Red Bull want to keep him in the car? Now that it seems Perez has found his mojo again and is close enough behind Verstappen to secure their place in the standings, they don’t need to replace him next season and can give Lawson the chance to show himself until then. By mid season next year he would have a year behind him, which is clearly enough for Red Bull to decide whether to promote or ditch him.
BasCB

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Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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12 comments on “Piastri practice crash a “big consequence” for a little error”

  1. Profile Photo

    Jim from US (@jimfromus)
    26th August 2023, 0:11

    Crashgate. McLaren knew that Alpha Tauri was closing in on them and ordered Piastri to crash in front of Riccardo.

    1. Profile Photo

      Jere (@jerejj)
      26th August 2023, 5:44

      Good joke

  2. Profile Photo

    SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
    26th August 2023, 3:35

    I don’t think it’s Ricciardo that needs to worry about losing the B-team’s seat as much as it is Yuki.

    1. Profile Photo

      Jere (@jerejj)
      26th August 2023, 5:44

      Yes, especially if Lawson manages to outperform him on merit despite a considerable preparation disadvantage.

    2. baasbas
      26th August 2023, 9:36

      @sjaakfoo
      Isn’t it highly likely that Lawson will struggle this weekend? I think we can’t expect more than him not crashing and bringing it home around the bottom end of the grid. Tsunoda will not be under threat by him. I think he was more under threat by Ricciardo but that threat is gone for some time now. This will make Tsunoda look better

      1. Profile Photo

        BasCB (@bascb)
        26th August 2023, 12:46

        yeah, we should expect Lawson to struggle to get on it this weekend. Not crashing is his most important task, if he shows anything decent on track pace wise and / or with racing other cars that would be a happy surprise.
        Agree that for Tsunoda this is a bit of a breether, but since it’s Red Bull’s team, he should still use it to show pace, otherwise he risks getting replaced later too.

    3. Profile Photo

      Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
      26th August 2023, 12:28

      AT would want to keep Ric as a benchmark.

  3. Profile Photo

    Jere (@jerejj)
    26th August 2023, 5:47

    Looking at that cast, the Italian GP definitely comes too soon for a return & as the COTD-nominated post rightly pointed out to me in the original article, also Singapore GP at the very least, maybe even Japanese GP, given that broken bones can take surprisingly long to wholly heal.

    1. Profile Photo

      BasCB (@bascb)
      26th August 2023, 12:47

      Yeah, that cast really does point to a rather extended recovery period.

      1. Facts&Stats
        26th August 2023, 14:32

        The size of the cast doesn’t (necessarily) indicate the seriousness of the fracture nor the time needed for recovery.

        A clean simple bone fracture without displacement takes typically 6 weeks to heal (stronger than before). After some 3 weeks it’s normally strong enough to remove the rigid/permanent cast and start some low impact movements.

        A metacarpal fracture requires a significant cast, as it needs to be totally immobilised, which includes the next finger bones (proximal phalanges), wrist and underarm. Movements in those bones/areas will cause the metacarpal bone to move as well, and can increase the healing time.

  4. SteveP
    26th August 2023, 9:02

    Looking at that cast, the Italian GP definitely comes too soon for a return & as the COTD-nominated post rightly pointed out to me in the original article,

    I think that was the second article on here related to the crash – the first was the FP2 write-up, in response to which you’d commented about Ricciardo not paying attention to the yellow flags.
    In fact, he had a choice of crashes and no real option of avoiding either/any of them.

    Looking at the Tech-Pro barrier build on that corner, I’m not convinced it’s the right setup.
    It seemed to slow Piastri nicely, but twist him round to 90-degrees to the track.
    Then, what should have been a glancing blow for DR turned into a steering wrenching grab at the front end of the AT

    1. Profile Photo

      Jere (@jerejj)
      26th August 2023, 9:44

      Yes, I may have mixed up the articles, but I see what you mean about Tech-Pro.

Comments are closed.