Spotlight cast on Oscar Piastri for making ‘bad judgement call’

Oscar Piastri made a “bad judgement call” and could have avoided the multi-car collision that wiped out both McLarens in the United States Grand Prix sprint, it has been claimed.

Both McLaren drivers crashed out on the opening lap of the Austin sprint race after Piastri was hit by Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber and bounced into teammate and title rival Lando Norris.

The incident marked a disastrous start to the weekend for McLaren, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen claiming victory to further reduce his championship deficit to Piastri and Norris by eight points.

McLaren were quick to pin the blame on their rivals, however Sky Sports F1 pundit Danica Patrick believes Piastri should shoulder some responsibility.

"We were watching this at speed and it both looked like they slowed down so much and Oscar was being really careful,” the former IndyCar and NASCAR driver said.

"This is what can happen sometimes if you are trying to stay away from each other so much and doing something outside of your norm of possibly racing around the outside and going at it that way.

"Inside the cockpit, it's such a different view from what we see but everyone is racing into the first corner with as much speed as possible and he slowed up any extra.

"It was avoidable. He could have fallen in line behind Lando and carried on. Instead, he got invited into that gap. It was a bad judgement call.”

Jenson Button suggested that Piastri took a risky move while battling Norris for second place at the first corner.

"The issue is Oscar has seen Lando go deep, so he goes 'right I'm going to slow the car down, switch back and get a good exit which is fine in a race situation when you are racing one other car,” the 2009 world champion said.

"But when you have 17 cars braking as late as they can into Turn 1, it never works because you end up with a car in your side.”

Could there be more ‘repercussions’ at McLaren?

Norris revealed ahead of the weekend that he faces “repercussions” for colliding with Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix last time out.

McLaren have remained secretive about the specifics of those consequences, but the latest incident has prompted questions about whether further action could be taken internally.

Button feels that would be unnecessary.

"If I was a team principal, no because it's one of those things,” he said. "From what Zak has said so far, other drivers have drove into Oscar.

"From a racing driver's point of view, it was more on Oscar. Lando's not even in this conversation. He was just unlucky to be there.”

Fellow Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok agreed with Button.

"In my opinion, I wouldn't have done anything here but I wouldn't have done anything for Singapore because that was also a lap 1 racing incident,” he said.

"The tricky thing they have got themselves into internally is by doing what they did after Singapore and publicly declaring it, it's set a precedent."