Oscar Piastri apologises to Alex Albon as he reveals F1 Canadian GP crash cause

Oscar Piastri has apologised to Alex Albon and explained the reason for his clumsy crash with the Williams driver during the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix.

Piastri was attempting to recover from McLaren’s failed starting tyre gamble by making his way through the field when he rammed into the side of Albon at the hairpin, earning himself a 10-second penalty in the process.

Albon was forced to retire due to the damage, while Piastri pitted for a new front wing and ultimately finished 11th as he missed out on points on a day to forget for McLaren.

“I thought it was going to be a bit tricky but possible,” Piastri said when asked by Crash.net if he thought he could recover into the top-10. “Just the level of grip out there was like nothing I’ve driven before, really.

“Just caught myself out, and obviously very sorry for Williams and Alex, because I wasn’t really trying to overtake him. Just locked up, and that was it. So one of those things.”

Reflecting on his race, Albon said he felt points would have been on the cards without the contact with Piastri.

“Yeah, not ideal,” the Williams driver reflected. “I think that was the first time in the weekend that things just started to feel more comfortable, so we need to understand why because I think what we did wasn’t extreme and it worked out quite well, so some learnings there.

“Obviously with Oscar, just unfortunate. I don’t think he planned to do the overtake, just got caught out with the track conditions and it happens. I think points were definitely possible today, but oh well.”

Piastri ‘said yes’ to starting on inters

Piastri, who reported over team radio that McLaren had “made a mistake” in starting on intermediate tyres, revealed he initially backed the decision.

“It was a group call. I was one of the people that said yes to the inters,” the Australian explained.

“Between the anthem and getting in the car, it had gotten significantly wetter on the ground, and given how difficult getting to the grid was, I thought that the inters, if you could get temperature into them would be faster, that was our whole thinking, and then the rain stopped, so yeah, it was a bit of a shame.

“I think once we had inters on the car, I don’t think pitting at the end in the formation laps would have made that much of a difference, clearly, but we thought we were doing the safer thing and the right thing and it wasn’t.”

Piastri was keen to find the positives from his weekend as a whole.

“I think it was encouraging in qualifying to get a little bit closer,” he said. “We’ve got some homework to do on how to make the car even quicker, for sure.

“I think for myself, today aside, I thought it was a positive weekend from a few different areas, maybe not very spectacular in terms of results, but I felt like I made some good progress compared to Miami on a few things, so there’s always some positives in there, but you’ve got to look pretty hard.”