Piastri fires shot at Stroll after Ricciardo clash

Oscar Piastri has shared his take on the Chinese Grand Prix incident between Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll, with the Australian firing a shot at the Aston Martin driver.

Ahead of the race restarting after a safety car, several drivers – including Piastri and Ricciardo – had to suddenly brake at the Turn 14 hairpin.

Stroll failed to brake hard enough and went into the back of Ricciardo, causing significant damage to the rear of the eight-time race winner’s RB.

The concertina effect saw Ricciardo hit the rear of Piastri, with Stroll having received a 10-second time penalty as a result.

After the race, Stroll pointed out his surprise at how early drivers suddenly braked. Piastri agreed with this view, but added that nobody else crashed.

“Yes, but everyone else didn’t crash into each other,” Piastri told select media including RacingNews365.

“I mean, I think in that kind of corner, you always kind of need to expect that. But yes, it did get quite close between a lot of us.”

Strong pace ‘encouraging’

Despite Piastri being caught up in the incident, McLaren showed good pace at the Shanghai International Circuit.

The Woking-based outfit were not expecting to be strong, which made Lando Norris’ P2 an even bigger shock to the team; albeit a pleasant one!

Whilst McLaren were delighted with Norris’ podium, Piastri has called for the side to understand why they performed so well.

“Yeah, I think definitely we need to understand why we’re quick on certain days and not quick on other days,” explained Piastri.

“I think we’ve got some good ideas but we just need to make sure that our reasons that we think why we’re good, are actually why.

“Because like I said, we thought we would struggle quite a lot here. So I think it’s very encouraging that Lando is able to finish second on a track that we thought we would struggle at.

“It’s exciting for what’s to come in the future, with some new parts coming to the car, it’s encouraging.”