Penalty looms for Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – Monza P3 soon to be lost?

Third on the grid for nine-time Grand Prix winner Oscar Piastri following a breathtaking qualifying session for the historic Italian Grand Prix at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. The 25-year-old Australian will start behind Pierre Gasly and George Russell.

Piastri is clearly pleased with his qualifying performance and says: “My first lap was very good; I don’t know if I could have improved on that much.”

But it all came down to a single mistake, as Piastri explains: “I misjudged the braking zone for the first corner ever so slightly, but you can’t afford to make mistakes there, so I braked too hard, and that meant my chance to improve was gone.”

Third place may soon be gone too. After qualifying, the 25-year-old, who finished third in the 2025 World Championship, had to report to the race control. There, he will have to explain to Garry Connelly (Australia), Mathieu Remmerie (Belgium), Tonio Liuzzi and Iacopo Arcangeli (both Italy) what he was thinking in Q1 when he was dawdling in the first corner in front of the fast-approaching Liam Lawson (Red Bull Racing).

Normally, the race stewards show no mercy in such cases; it is quite conceivable that this (depending on the stewards’ assessment) will result in a grid penalty of three or five places for Piastri.

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Oscar says: “I’m happy with P3, as it’s been a while since I’ve been able to mix it up at the front.”

It hasn’t actually been that long, though: Piastri was also third fastest two race weekends ago in Hungary. And at the season opener in Australia, too.

Oscar continues: “The slipstream is very powerful here. We had to time it perfectly. We tried to catch a good slipstream, but then I was too eager going into the first corner, and a wheel locked up straight away.”

On the Lawson incident, Oscar says: “The difference in speed between the cars is huge; I’d just come out of the pits and spotted Lawson too late.”