The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was Oscar Piastri‘s worst race of the 2025 season thus far after he crashed out on the opening lap, bringing out the safety car. The incident will have a serious effect on his championship lead over his teammate, Lando Norris.
Following a disappointing qualifying session yesterday, when he crashed in Q3 of the qualifying session at Baku, Piastri’s weekend ended badly with a second crash after the race start.
Piastri jumped the race start and stopped, only to get going again. The error cost him a good race start. Eager to recover positions, the Australian driver pushed hard but slid into the wall at Turn 5.
Piastri was asked about the incident after the race and if he had crashed into any other cars. He said:
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“No, just locked up and went off.”
Speaking on the jump start, he said:
“Yeah, just misjudgment on the lights, I guess trying to anticipate it too much and, yeah, simple error, and then went into anti-stall and yeah. Went downhill from there, so just a simple, simple error.”
When asked how he was feeling, especially with Norris not finishing in the top five to gain significant points in the championship, he said:
“You know, ultimately, I felt like the pace has still been good this weekend and, I think it’s rare that I have so many executional errors, so very much focused on putting that behind me.
“I would be much more concerned if these errors were because I was trying to make up time or, you know, do things like that. Obviously being costly errors but things that can be very, very easily rectified.”
While dirty air was likely a contributing factor to his crash, Piastri said he didn’t want to make excuses. He added:
“Yeah, I think just ultimately misjudging the grip level, and, you know, probably a lot of that’s from dirty air, but you know.
“I know better than that to expect the lack of grip, so you know, I’m certainly not blaming it on anything else. It was two simple errors on my behalf that cost the day.”
Asked if this weekend felt different from the others, given the errors from his side, he said:
“No, there’s not been anything that different. You know, it depends how you want to look at that, I guess. For me, you know, if I felt like I was in a completely different headspace, then it’s kind of easier to blame it on that, and also a problem to rectify.
“But, this weekend’s felt like any other weekend, just unfortunately there’s been far too many mistakes through from start to finish, you know, every single session has been messy, so yeah, just trying to clean that up is the important thing for the future.”
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