Oscar Piastri was unable to start the Australian Grand Prix after crashing his McLaren on his way to the grid of his home race.
After the pit lane opened to allow the cars to make their way to the grid 40 minutes before lights out for the first race of the 2026 season, Piastri inexplicably lost control on the exit of Turn 4 and shunted into the barrier on the other side of the track.
The Australian appeared to be having issues with the energy deployment of his car earlier in the lap, and was perhaps caught by surprise when it began to function at full power.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 on the grid moments later, McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said: “We’ve not seen anything on the data so far. He didn’t say anything on the radio, so we’ll do a post-mortem after the race and see what happened.
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Anthony Davidson was at the SkyPad to look back on how Piastri crashed his McLaren on the way to the grid.
“For now, we’ve got to focus on the car we have in the race and get the excitement level back up, because that’s definitely disappointing for Oscar at his home race.
“I’m sure he’ll be sore about that one for a while but these race car drivers know how to recovery quickly. Definitely not the way you want to get started, but he’ll be back.”
More to follow…
Formula 1 heads to Shanghai for the first Sprint weekend of the 2026 season at the Chinese Grand Prix from this Friday, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12040/13516644/oscar-piastri-mclaren-driver-unable-to-start-australian-gp-after-crashing-on-way-to-grid-at-home-race-in-melbourne