Oscar Piastri has once again shown the Formula One world his steel and grit, losing about six kilograms over the course of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, but managing to still fight through to the chequered flag.
The 22-year-old Melburnian was plagued by food poisoning that he picked up at the beginning of the race weekend, but battled to an 11th-place finish in Baku in an encouraging result for the Woking-based McLaren outfit.
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The physical stresses of driving a Formula One car normally mean that drivers typically lose around 3 kilograms during a two hour race, but Piastri’s stomach bug saw him lose that much since arriving in Azerbaijan.
Piastri qualified 10th in his second progression to Q3 for the year, but was tagged by Alex Albon at Turn 2 on the opening lap.
The Australian largely spent the race battling behind AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda in the midfield in a processional endeavour after some early safety car drama courtesy of a Nyck De Vries spin pushed an early-pitting Piastri down the pecking order.
Piastri battled home in a valiant effort to finish 11th at the chequered flag, apologising to his race engineer for his absence over the weekend.
“Shame to be P11 but we didn’t have the pace,” Piastri told the team over the radio.
“Sorry I haven’t seen most of you this weekend. Big shout-out too, to the Doc!”
Piastri skipped his Saturday media appearances owing to the bug, but told press after the race he had lost a significant amount of weight due to the illness.
“I think the adrenaline’s still kicking in at the moment but I felt a bit better this morning, which was good,” he said.
“Through the race, it didn’t impact me too much.
“I’m a lot light than I was at the start of the weekend!
“Today’s probably been the best all weekend, which isn’t saying much.
“It’s been very difficult, physically. Especially yesterday was pretty rough.
“I think I’ve had about four pieces of toast for the whole weekend, so I need to get some food in me before Miami.”
Ex-F1 driver Karun Chandhok said on Sky Sport Piastri couldn’t keep anything down.
“Oscar Piastri has been so ill all weekend long. Just losing fluid and just can’t keep anything down because he’s got a stomach bug,” Chandhok said.
“His manager Mark Webber was telling me he’s lost nearly 3kg since he arrived in Azerbaijan. That’s how ill he’s been over this weekend.”
Piastri told media after the race it was a “shame” to just miss out on the points.
“It was a shame to miss out on points by one spot, but we were just lacking a bit of pace in the middle of the race, so there wasn’t really much more we could do,” he said.
“I’m happy I survived the weekend after being unwell and we’ve got some really good learning in the bank.
“I certainly learned a lot about the tyres in that race, and how to manage them better, so all of that will help us fight for points next time.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella called the Australian’s efforts “impressive”.
“You wouldn’t be able to say from the outside that the driver is actually not feeling very well. Oscar is impressive in the way he deals with that, because he doesn’t really want to show it even to us,” Stella said.
“He keeps his calm, he keeps his bearing.”
It would end up being another Red Bull 1-2 finish as Sergio Perez made the most of a fortuitous Safety Car to take the lead and hold off teammate Max Verstappen to claim the sixth win of his career.
All five of Perez’s race victories with Red Bull have come on street circuits, including two at Baku.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc rounded out the podium.
It was a largely uneventful race in Azerbaijan before Alpine’s Esteban Ocon sparked scary scenes when he came into the pits in the dying stages for his mandatory pit stop.
Ocon had been holding up several drivers throughout the race, including the two McLarens, but he had to pit at least once, relegating him down to 15th.
A group of staff and photographers clearly didn’t expect any more drivers to change tyres and they walked out onto pit lane in preparation for the podium presentation.
Thankfully no one was hurt, but Ocon very nearly ran over several people in scary scenes.
