Piastri knew first F1 crash would come at some point

The Australian had enjoyed an encouraging weekend in Montreal up until his accident, as he made it through to the final qualifying segment.

However, he ended up against the barriers early on in Q3 as he spun on the exit of Turn 8.

The incident briefly stopped the session and meant Piastri ended up ninth fastest overall, before moving up a place after Carlos Sainz’s grid drop.

Asked by Autosport for a summary on what happened, Piastri said the incident was a simple throttle error – which did not take too much of a shine off what has been a fairly uplifting event.

“I think it's been a reasonably encouraging weekend,” he said. “I think most of qualifying was good, apart from Q3.

“But even in saying that, I'm not sure what the potential in Q3 would have been myself.

“It’s my first sort of major mistake and I had to get the first crash out of the way at some point. Just too aggressive on the throttle and that was all.

“It is easy to do, and obviously a shame. I’m sorry to the mechanics who now have more work than they need. But yeah, all in all, I'm still reasonably happy with how the weekend has gone.”

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Speaking ahead of the Montreal event, Piastri had talked about needing to find the limit quicker on race weekends after admitting that he had perhaps been too cautious at times.

“I think in general, especially at circuits we've been to like Saudi Arabia, Baku and Monaco, building through the weekend is useful because you find the limit at the right time and you don't go over it,” he said.

“I think that's been something I've tried to do through my whole career as well. I just think in the races themselves, I try to be quite sensible in some places, maybe even a bit too cautious at times.

“In some ways I can be a bit more aggressive. But obviously I’m new to F1 and trying to build up as much as I can.

“There's been some close calls definitely and some big moments, but there's not been any crashes yet. It will happen one day, but for now I’m just trying to get there slowly and maximise my track time as well.”

Asked if he could remember the previous time he properly crashed, Piastri said: “I've had a couple of spins in an F1 car, but the last time I hit a wall or got stuck.... yeah, that was probably Formula Renault in 2019 when I got stuck in the gravel. So it's been a while.”

Additional reporting by Adam Cooper and Ronald Vording