Martin Brundle has revealed the impact the Qatar GP had on Oscar Piastri following McLaren's major strategy blunder.
Piastri was looking set to reignite his championship challenge in Qatar after winning the sprint and leading the early stages of the Grand Prix.
However, disaster struck for McLaren on lap seven, when they were the only team not to pit under safety car handing them a huge disadvantage.
This comes directly after the British team saw both cars disqualified in Las Vegas for skid wear.
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The strategy call handed victory to Max Verstappen with Piastri recovering to second, however Lando Norris was lucky to finish fourth after pouncing on a Kimi Antonelli error on the penultimate lap.
Verstappen now sits 12 points off Norris in the championship, with Piastri 16 behind his papaya teammate with all three in the fight heading to Abu Dhabi.
Despite cutting the gap in Qatar, Piastri was extremely downbeat after failing to convert pole position through no fault of his own.
"Clearly we didn't get it right tonight," Piastri told Martin Brundle post race.
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"I drove the best race that I could and as fast as I could. There was nothing left out there."
The Aussie also commented on the strategy call, and admitted it will be hard to get over such a big missed opportunity.
"I think in hindsight it's pretty obvious what we would have done, but I'm sure we'll discuss it as a team.
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"It's not all bad. It's been a really good weekend and the pace has been very strong.
"Obviously it's a little bit tough to swallow at the moment," he added.
Piastri was 'broken' following Qatar GP
After returning to commentary, Brundle was quick to comment on Piastri's body language claiming he was visibly 'broken' from the day's events.
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“Piastri was broken," Brundle said.
“Of course they should have both come in, or they should have split the strategy. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
“They’ve made a key error on that and it’s cost the team an important victory."
He added: “I was trying to get some words out of Oscar after the race. He was broken, because he’s dominated this weekend.”
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Piastri will take positives from his pace this weekend and will hope to carry his form into the season finale at Yas Marina.
Topics: Formula 1, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Motorsport
Tom Jenkins