Piastri assesses his ‘painful’ Spanish Grand Prix as damage makes for ‘difficult afternoon’

Oscar Piastri had a race to forget in Madrid after a first lap incident derailed his afternoon on a day where Lando Norris showed the McLaren had the pace to fight for the win.

The Australian finished down in eighth place, behind the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, and while the unlucky timing of the Virtual Safety Car prevented his team mate from fighting for the win, Piastri had his own slice of misfortune.

He picked up damage to his front wing after first lap contact with George Russell’s Mercedes, with the Australian left nowhere to go as the Mercedes ducked across the track towards the barriers. That left him with aero damage in the form of a broken end-plate and short on downforce, something the team could only mitigate but not fully fix at his one and only pit stop.

And having started on the hard tyres, the timing of the early Virtual Safety Car also proved problematic for the 25-year-old.

“It was pretty painful obviously, from Lap 1," he assessed afterwards. "Yeah, not much I really could have done from there.

"The timing for the VSC was certainly not ideal for us, [stayed] on the hard and it was just a difficult afternoon."

Having opted not to stop under the VSC, Piastri ran a long opening stint in the hopes of a later VSC, Safety Car or red flag moment. But no more incidents came, leaving him to make a pit stop under full racing conditions.

The time lost meant he came out in traffic and, while he pulled off one of the few overtakes on Sunday, picking off Arvid Lindblad, Piastri could not find a way past the Alpine of Colapinto late on.

To trace back the difficulties Piastri faced, you have to look to Qualifying where he needed an extra set of softs to guarantee he made it through Q2. That left him as the only front runner to have a used set of the C4 tyre for his first run in Q3.

On his second run on the new tyres, where balance would have been different to the used set, he made a mistake early in his lap and from there, could only qualify seventh.

That left him starting in the midst of the pack, something always fraught with danger as all the cars barrel down into Turn 1 on a narrow street track.

“It was mostly the end of Qualifying and then Lap 1 obviously was far from ideal, having damage for the whole race,” he explained.

“It was tough like that, but today we just tried to learn as much as we could to try and get more out of the car and the way I drive it. Hopefully we’ve learned a few things for the rest of the year.”

Piastri has two podiums to show for his 2026 season, the last of which came in Miami, and one top-three finish in a Sprint. His team mate has five rostrums, including two victories, a Sprint win, three other Sprint top-three finishes, three pole positions and a Sprint pole.

The contrast between their two seasons is stark, and is further highlighted in the Championship where Norris has amassed 66 more points than his team mate.

Piastri will be hoping his luck changes soon, and he has a chance to set things right next time out in Azerbaijan. Last year it was the event that saw his championship hopes dealt their first big blow after an early DNF - something he will want to atone for when the F1 paddock reconvenes in Baku in two weeks' time.