But one bad call derailed Oscar Piastri’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix hopes. The McLaren job was one of more promising weekends in the 2026 F1 season and settled into a huge lock up at the early Turn 1 in the final lap to get 15th place.

Third on the grid, with his best Saturday in qualifying this season, Oscar Piastri was a good candidate to battle it out for a podium following the second S-calight. But his race took a dramatic turn when he was trying to fend off a challenge and locked both his front wheels.

After Max Verstappen had pulled away from him after the first restart, the Australian had been forced for the second time by Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar. Piastri attempted to defend on the inside at Turn 1, but the front tyres lost a lot of grip pretty quickly. He forced his way forward and tumbleth down the order as it was quickly cut through.

Following the race, Piastri said he had no immediate cause for the failure to explain and believes there was some technical issue. The lock up was “a bit weird,” he said, and that he didn’t feel that he had been going much different on that braking. He was, however, on a different line than he’s used to playing on, though, which may have contributed.

Piastri also asked himself if he had hit a crown of a road or a bumpy area. The most unexpected incident for him was the fact that both the front tyres locked up so quickly.The error was particularly painful, seeing Piastri run much better all weekend. He was on a pace to track McLaren team-mate Lando Norris before the incident, when both were in the top three.

In fact, Piastri said that he would have been hard pressed to have caught the Red Bull once he was gone. His bigger battle was likely to have been with Hadjar, who was putting pressure on him for third place.

Piastri also referenced the difference that his tyres had between a soft and a medium compound. Heavy flat spotting during the race, plus the medium tyres didn’t seem to be quite as nice as the softs, were the main complaints, he said.

That’s why Piastri took care not to say that there was a roof that was definitely there. There was a big difference between where a driver could have been and how they ended up, as fourth place may have been a more realistic finish, he said.

One thing is saying ‘we could have been’, and another is where you are at the end of the day,’ Piastri said.

There was a silver lining to the Baku weekend though, as he crashed at the Epping Metallic Estate. But Piastri has had a lot of time to think about what he needs to do to wring more out of the 2026-specification car that McLaren delivered for his Formula E test session.

He was not necessarily more comfortable in the car, and he’d be able to get more lap time out of it, the Australian said. More significantly, he now had a better grasp on how to drive the car to get the most out of it.

It was a big achievement for Piastri in the first place, especially since he stated the weekend was more in line with what he expects from himself. The driver of the McLaren also said that the modern Formula 1 cars were more difficult to operate than the previous incarnates.

However, in older versions, pilots were able to control their tyres and then still be close to the top gear. Driving close to 100% sometimes is the quickest rates to finish a race,” said Piastri.

In the current cars, Piastri says, “it is quite different.” He feels that they should be driving at almost or even 100% at all times. If it’s below that, they could suffer a pretty hefty time penalty.

This is something that has been a learning curve for him this season.

Piastri was soon realizing that he had finally found a place where he could attain that level more regularly: Baku. He didn’t make driving the car easier, but he had come to understand the way in which to drive the car and how to get out of it more output. Despite the outcome of the situation, it was one of his more promising weekends of the year.

The fall was also the loss of a possible podium finish for McLaren as Piastri had added signs of genuine pace in a race. Rather, the Australian was left to ponder on what could have been.

That being said, Piastri thinks he’s gleaned some key lessons from the weekend. The Turn 1 error will be one of the key things for him to dissect, and this is also a big step on the road to tuning the 26 car.

Now the challenge to get that improved knowledge reflected in consistent performance. Baku was a split test for Piastri, illustrating his improvement towards the car, but also a good example of how tiny errors can cause significant differences in Formula 1.

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