MELBOURNE - He led the entire championship for a long time last year, picking up wins and turning from a little-known youngster into a star. This year, Oscar Piastri has already failed to make a start to the season - demolishing his mclaren on the grid in the home Australian Formula One Grand Prix. „It's a shame,“ he admitted bluntly. He hit a kerb around a corner, skidded on acceleration and was already careering left towards the barrier in an out-of-control spinning monoposto. At that moment he didn't have to go all out, he didn't have to fight for every hundredth of a second. He just had to get to the starting grid. Before the end of the Grand Prix, which hadn't even started for him, he sat down in front of the TV cameras. And it was immediately obvious that he didn't want to make any excuses - he was unhappy, embarrassed, as if he wanted to be somewhere else at that moment.

„I'm very disappointed,“ he admitted. „We have to see what happened with the team. My car went off on the kerb, it was a combination of things - I had cold tyres and I had 100 kilowatts more power than I should have had at that moment. I don't know if the engine was working in accordance with the rules,“ the 24-year-old Australian let slip. It couldn't have been more disappointing for the fans at the circuit, as the only representative of their country didn't even make the race. While it certainly wasn't boring on the track, for them there was already something missing. „That shouldn't have happened. I apologise to everyone who came to support me, this is definitely not how I wanted to start the year,“ said the unlucky rider of the day.

One could only speculate on what position Piastri would have crossed the finish line, but by all accounts he would not have fought for the podium. McLaren lacked the pace of their rivals and Lando Norris just about held on to fifth position ahead of Max Verstappen, who started from 20th. So the balance of power in the new season saw some major changes - the top four teams remained the same, but McLaren dropped from being the strongest stable to fourth place behind Red Bull. However, the season is long, the circuit in Melbourne, Australia is specific and it is possible that it was just a bad start and the reigning champions will soon correct the messed up start. We will see in a week in Shanghai, China.

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