The Australian Grand Prix has not been kind to the Aussies. No driver from down under has managed to finish on the podium in their home race since it became a part of the F1 calendar in 1985. Oscar Piastri had a brilliant chance to change that last weekend.
However, a mistake led him to finish in the ninth spot. Coming into the penultimate corner on lap 44 of the race, the #81 driver went off track and spun into the grass. Just a few seconds prior, his teammate Lando Norris, while heading the pack, had struggled for grip in the same corner, but someone managed to maintain control.
The McLaren cars were struggling on the semi-wet track after the rain that hit midway through the race. Piastri lost valuable seconds stuck on the grass bed while trying to move forward. He managed to get back onto the track in reverse. The Aussie was gutted. All the more because at one point in the race, he was driving sharper than Norris.
Team orders stifled him, and the mistake took him off podium contention. While analyzing Piastri’s incident, F1 TV analyst and former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer went back into the archives and picked out a similar moment with Michael Schumacher during the 2001 Malaysian GP.
During lap three of that race, both the Ferraris of Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello went off into the grass in tricky conditions. While Barrichello was able to rejoin the track safely, Schumacher got entangled with the grass in the run-off area.
Oscar Piastri’s mistake when the mid-race rain hit took him out of podium contention, eventually finishing P9
He feels he only has himself to blame for the incident ️ #F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/SOHe91rs5V
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 16, 2025
But unlike Piastri, Schumacher was able to put on a brilliant recovery drive and took the checkered flag in first place. What made Schumacher’s drive even more compelling was that he was facing car issues in the final phase of the Grand Prix. The win helped Schumi overtake Nigel Mansell’s and Ascari’s joint record of five victories in a row from pole position.
One of the factors that aided Schumacher‘s recovery was the fact that he had made his mistake at the start of the race. This allowed him to mount a brilliant comeback. Piastri, however, only had a handful of laps after his mistake to recover.
