F1 insider highlights key Oscar Piastri lesson after “shi*” Baku weekend

Former Haas F1 boss Guenther Steiner believes Oscar Piastri’s nightmare weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has taught him a key lesson: not to take unnecessary risks when trying to recover from mistakes.

Piastri endured a disastrous weekend in Baku, crashing out on the opening lap of the race. 

That capped off an error-strewn few days for the F1 world championship leader.

He had already crashed in qualifying, leaving him ninth on the grid. 

The Australian then jumped the start in the race, earning a five-second penalty. In his bid to recover lost ground, Piastri clattered the barriers and retired on Lap 1.

Fortunately for the McLaren driver, with Lando Norris struggling for pace, Piastri only lost six points to his teammate in the title fight.

Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, Steiner backed Piastri to “recover pretty quickly from it”.

“But hopefully he’s got it out of the system now,” Steiner said. “But he was pretty cool afterwards. He said, you know, it was a shit weekend, they happen, you know.

“To all normal human beings, it happens. I had a lot of shit days, and you just get up again and go again.

“How should we speak about a lot of other drivers who had more than one shit weekend? I mean, Oscar had one shit weekend, and that’s it, you know. I think he can recover pretty quickly from it; done and dusted.”

Important lesson for Piastri

Steiner believes the Baku weekend could prove an important one for Piastri in his fight with Norris for the title.

This season has been fairly smooth sailing for Piastri, with only a handful of errors. 

Besides his off at the Australian Grand Prix, the 24-year-old has enjoyed a consistent run.

Steiner highlighted that Piastri’s problems in Baku stemmed from trying too hard to make up for earlier mistakes, which ultimately led to his DNF.

“It’s only one weekend, so it’s all done, and now he starts fresh,” Steiner added.

“Get it out of the system, boom, I go now again – he just wanted to watch the race from that position in that chair,” he joked. “That’s what he was dreaming of. It was a childhood dream of his, and that is how he did it!”

“When you start off the weekend like he did in qualifying, with what he did I think at the start, obviously, he wanted a little bit more to make up as much as he can.

“Made a mistake again, and then just misjudged the braking because he wanted too much too quick.

“I think what he learned out of it is, if you do something wrong, it’s no point to try and make it up by making more mistakes, by taking too much risk. But it all started in qualifying.”