Piastri called out for ‘dirty’ driving in Max Verstappen incident

Oscar Piastri may be feeling hard done by after a 10-second penalty cost him the win in Britain, but Ralf Schumacher says it was “dirty” racing that earned the McLaren driver the penalty.

Piastri was leading the British Grand Prix by 13 seconds when the Safety Car was deployed after Isack Hadjar crashed out of the race having rear-ended Kimi Antonelli in the rain.

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The field bunched up with Piastri ahead of Verstappen, the Red Bull driver sticking to the McLaren’s rear wing.

But just as the Safety Car signalled on Lap 21 that it was coming in, Piastri stamped on the brakes and Verstappen went flying past him on his right side.

“Whoa mate! He just suddenly again slows down,” exclaimed the Red Bull driver over the radio.

The stewards agreed that Piastri had been driving erratically behind the Safety Car and “suddenly braked hard,” applying 59.2 psi of brake pressure to go from 218kph to 52kph.

As a result, Verstappen had to take “evasive action to avoid a collision.”

Piastri was found to have broken Article 55.15 of the FIA Sporting Regulations, landing him a 10-second time penalty and two penalty points on his Super Licence.

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The Aussie, though, feels it wasn’t a fair call.

Speaking immediately after the race, he said: “I mean, apparently you can’t brake behind the Safety Car anymore. I did it for five laps before that.”

Asked to share a bit more in the post-race press conference, the driver, who finished second having lost the lead of the race to Lando Norris as a result of the penalty, explained: “I hit the brakes. At the same time I did that, the lights on the Safety Car went out, which was also extremely late.

“And then obviously, I didn’t accelerate because I can control the pace from there. And, yeah, you saw the result. I didn’t do anything differently to my first restart. I didn’t go any slower. I didn’t do anything differently.

“So, a shame.”

But while Piastri called it a shame and McLaren said the penalty was “very harsh,” others were more scathing in their judgement.

Notably Schumacher.

The former F1 driver claims it was nothing short of “dirty” driving by the Australian as he slammed brakes and set Verstappen up for failure. Failure that could’ve included penalty points that would’ve once again put him on the cusp of a race ban.

“The penalty was definitely deserved,” Schumacher told Sky Deutschland. “He tried, wanted to show Max that he could do it too. It was too much.

“I don’t want to say dirty, but it was dirty in any case.”

Dropping penalty points after the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen will sit on nine points – three away from a race ban – until late October when he loses another two.

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