Oscar Piastri caught up in ‘unfair’ incident as Brundle calls for ‘common sense’
Oscar Piastri had to abandon his first flying lap in Singapore GP qualifying for a move that Martin Brundle deemed "unfair."
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was able to rebound from a difficult Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend to qualify third ahead of Sunday’s big race in Singapore — but early on in the session, the Australian driver was forced to abandon his first flying lap due to an ill-timed yellow flag.
The flag was issued because a car had gone off the racing line, but as Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle has pointed out, that car was actually just attempting to get out of Piastri’s way, making the yellow flag “unfair.”
Oscar Piastri victim of “unfair” yellow flag repercussions in Singapore quali
Heading into the Singapore Grand Prix, all eyes have been on Oscar Piastri as the Australian driver looks to recover from a challenging weekend in Azerbaijan that saw him end both qualifying and the grand prix itself crunched into the barriers.
Countless pundits have been wondering if the weight of Piastri’s championship lead has somehow begun to psych him out or unintentionally change his usual driving standards after some fumbles in both Italy and Azerbaijan.
Singapore, then, has come to represent something of a symbolic choice point in the eyes of many onlookers; the fate of Piastri’s championship challenge will rest in his ability to perform.
And that’s why it was particularly frustrating that the McLaren driver’s very first attempt at a flying lap was aborted thanks to an inappropriately thrown yellow flag.
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Piastri had picked up speed as he flew around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, and just ahead of him, Alex Albon made a key call to move out of the way of the quicker car. It was a fairly normal move, but the marshal in that sector made the decision to throw the yellow flag for what appeared to be a car diving off the racing line.
That yellow flag, then, completely killed Piastri’s lap.
“Aw man, come on!” the McLaren driver lamented over the radio to race engineer Tom Stallard. “You can’t give a yellow flag to someone getting out of the way!”
That brought a quick close to Piastri’s first attempt at getting a time on the board, adding pressure to his later runs lest he be caught out by a different incident.
Reviewing the incident on Sky Sports, Martin Brundle was in instant agreement with the Australian driver about the problem.
“He’s right. He’s right,” Brundle agreed.
“That car was just getting out of his way! That’s wrecked his lap; that’s wrecked his tyres. But basically because that car ran deep on the outside to get out of the way, he’s been given a yellow flag.
“He’s right. That’s unfair.
“Unfortunately, the marshals are just doing their job specifically. But there has to be a level of sort of common sense that goes into that.”
Thankfully for Piastri, he told media in the post-session FIA press conference that the yellow flag incident didn’t “really” impact the rest of his session, though he did admit to being frustrated.
“Any time on a street circuit you don’t do laps is frustrating, and I did feel like through Q1 I was playing catch-up a little bit,” he admitted.
“But ultimately, it didn’t really affect much.
“It was obviously frustrating to have a yellow flag thrown for someone getting out of the way.
“There’s been a lot of adjustments on the yellow flags and stuff like that, but I think there’s still some tweaking to do there, because Alex did the best job he could to get out of my way, and it ended up costing me a lap anyway. So, some things to look at there.”
Despite the Q1 kerfuffle, Piastri went on to qualify third behind polesitter George Russell and second-placed Max Verstappen. Teammate and closest title challenger Lando Norris will start from fifth.
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