Oscar Piastri makes fresh admission about McLaren's Austin sprint clash

Oscar Piastri insists his first-lap collision with McLaren teammate Lando Norris in the United States Grand Prix sprint race was “just a racing incident”.

The championship leader bounced into teammate and title rival Norris after being hit from behind by Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg at Turn 1 on the opening lap of Saturday’s sprint race in Austin.

Both Piastri and Norris were wiped out in the clash, enabling Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to gain eight points on the pair and reduce his championship deficit down to 55 points with six races remaining.

Having reviewed the incident, Piastri did admit he may have approached things differently in hindsight.

"I think it is just a racing incident,” Piastri said. “Lando and I were a long way away from the apex and it’s impossible to see everything at that point.

“If I had have known that there was three-wide behind me, maybe I would have done something a little bit different. But you have to trust your gut and your instinct, and that’s what I did.”

Like Piastri, Norris downplayed the collision, insisting he was helpless to avoid it.

Piastri explains qualifying ‘battle’

Piastri’s disappointing Saturday continued in regular qualifying, with the Australian ending up only sixth on the grid and 0.574 seconds off the pace, with Verstappen and Norris on the front row.

"I didn't really make any mistakes, just didn’t feel like I really got into a rhythm for the whole session, just struggled,” he said. “We’ll go and have a look at why, obviously. But, yeah, that was obviously a battle.

“Max has looked quick all weekend, so we’ll have to wait and see if that translates to tomorrow as well, but we have no idea.”

Asked if he can reset for Sunday’s grand prix, Piastri, who has looked out of sorts all weekend so far, replied: "Yeah, I think so. Obviously, when you don’t have the pace you want, it’s never the nicest feeling.

"But there’s a lot of opportunities tomorrow, there’s strategy things, hopefully our race pace will be good, it’s a track you can overtake on, so we’ll see what we can do. The weekend is far from over.”

Speaking to Sky Sports F1, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: "It just took a little bit longer for him [to find the rhythm].

"There's a couple of places in which the driving was untidy. The gaps are not big. It's so close that when you have a couple of tenths missed in a couple of corners, then it can cost many positions.

"Even more now for Oscar, it's about going into a racing rhythm and exploring the strengths of the car and the strengths of Oscar in terms of race craft."