{"id":320165,"date":"2023-07-30T20:10:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T20:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=320165"},"modified":"2023-07-30T23:59:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T23:59:09","slug":"absolute-disaster-ruins-piastris-belgian-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=320165","title":{"rendered":"'Absolute disaster' ruins Piastri's Belgian Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian Formula 1<\/a> young gun Oscar Piastri<\/a> is lamenting a turbulent weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix<\/a>, after his podium finish in the Saturday\ufeff sprint<\/a> was followed by a retirement in Sunday's race.<\/p>\n

The McLaren rookie crashed out of the race\ufeff after just one corner, having collided with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz before bumping into the wall at La Source.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen continued his crushingly dominant season with an eighth consecutive win and his 10th overall,\ufeff collecting the chequered flag 22 seconds before Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez crossed the finish line in second.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Aussie run chase begins superbly before rain ruins day\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Matildas coach's grim admission with 'legacy' at stake\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE: \ufeff<\/strong>Fittler rips 'lazy' Cowboys star over costly sin-bin<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Australian fan favourite Daniel Ricciardo\ufeff started in 19th on the grid and finished 16th.<\/p>\n

Piastri spoke of his disappointment in a chat with Formula 1 TV while the race was still going.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"Obviously I had a pretty good launch, was getting alongside Carlos, he kind of jinxed the inside a bit and I obviously had to get out of the brakes to not get hit, my nose was kind of there and at that point it was too late to try to back out, so unfortunately I ended up in contact," Piastri said.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffShame to end so early.<\/p>\n

"Overall we can still be happy with what we've done. Obviously first top-three finish (on Saturday), been competitive in the qualifying sessions … I think we can still be proud, especially with the last few weekends we've had, as well. Positive for the rest of the year and we'll see what we can do."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sky Sports commentator David Croft said Piastri's race had been "absolutely ruined" by his tangle with Sainz, who also retired.<\/p>\n

"These opening exchanges (are an) absolute disaster for Oscar Piastri," Croft added.<\/p>\n

Verstappen's triumph moved him closer to a third world title in succession and his own F1 record of 15 wins from last year.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman is 125 points ahead of Perez after just 12 races, and his next target is matching Sebastian Vettel\u2019s F1 record of nine straight wins with a victory at the Dutch GP when the lopsided season resumes on August 27.<\/p>\n

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc finished in third spot for a third podium of the season, with Lewis Hamilton collecting fourth for Mercedes ahead of Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n

George Russell was sixth for Mercedes, with Lando Norris (McLaren), Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) completing the top 10.<\/p>\n

Leclerc started on pole ahead of Perez, with Hamilton and Sainz behind them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Piastri was on the next row alongside Verstappen, who was fastest in Friday's qualifying but took a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change and had to avoid early traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just about surviving turn one. I could see it was all getting really tight,\u201d Verstappen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in that position before myself so I am just going to stay out of that and it worked out.<\/p>\n

"From there onwards I made the right overtakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Verstappen overtook Perez on lap 17 of 44, his 45th career win was seemingly inevitable.<\/p>\n

Red Bull extended its record to 13 straight wins, including the final race of last season.<\/p>\n

Hamilton came in on the penultimate lap for a tyre change and the move paid off as he took the bonus point for fastest lap from Verstappen \u2014 a minor blip for the Red Bull ace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was yet another stellar weekend for Verstappen, who also won Saturday\u2019s sprint race.<\/p>\n

The only issue was more bickering with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over radio, as they continued their spat from Friday\u2019s qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t forget, Max, use your head, please,\u201d Lambiase told Verstappen when he questioned why Perez was making his first tyre change on lap 14.<\/p>\n

With rain forecast, Verstappen pitted on the next lap and came out about two seconds behind Perez.<\/p>\n

Just minutes later he cruised past Perez and, as so often this season, the rest was just about control.<\/p>\n

Perez, meanwhile, pledged to stay on the podium for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a bit of a rough patch," the 33-year-old Mexican said.<\/p>\n

"I really need this summer break; it\u2019s been really intense. I\u2019ll come back really strong for Zandvoort.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian Formula 1 young gun Oscar Piastri is lamenting a turbulent weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix, after his podium finish in the Saturday\ufeff sprint […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320175,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320165\/revisions\/320175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/320167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}