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Oscar Piastri hits out at F1 rival in the ‘wrong’ with plea for FIA clampdown
Oscar Piastri from Australia is driving the (81) McLaren F1 Team MCL38 Mercedes during the Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix 2024 in Miami, USA...
Photo by Alessio Morgese/NurPhoto via Getty Images

McLaren ace Oscar Piastri has now hit out at a rival Formula 1 driver who was in the ‘wrong’ at the Miami Grand Prix and urges the FIA to clamp down on all dirty tactics.

The Australian stomached his worst race of the season so far at Hard Rock Stadium last time out. Piastri failed to score points in a Grand Prix for the first time this year after contact with Carlos Sainz broke his front wing. The McLaren driver would only fight back to finish in 14th.

Piastri was fighting Sainz for P4 before the Ferrari driver clipped the 23-year-old after going deep at Turn 17. But it was another driver’s dirty tactics that irritated Piastri at the Miami GP weekend. Now, the McLaren pilot wants the FIA to prevent seeing a ‘risky’ precedent be set.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 MCL60 during the F1 Grand Prix of Miami at Miami International Autodrome on May 05, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
Photo by Michael Potts/BSR Agency/Getty Images

Kevin Magnussen admitted his penalties in the Miami GP Sprint were ‘well deserved’

Piastri has called on the FIA to act after Kevin Magnussen admitted that the Haas driver fully deserved all of his penalties during the F1 Sprint at the Miami GP. The stewards gave the 31-year-old three 10-second time penalties plus a five-second penalty for his driving standards.

Magnussen received each of his 10s penalties for leaving the track and gaining an advantage and the 5s penalty for exceeding track limits while defending from Lewis Hamilton. The Haas driver regularly overstepped the limits trying to retain eighth place from the Mercedes racer.

Hamilton even lost a position to Yuki Tsunoda due to Magnussen forcing him off the track at Turn 11. The Dane simply refused to accept the Briton had passed him and drove them both off. Magnussen was desperate to get a point and help his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, in P7.

Magnussen admitted to Sky Sports straight after the F1 Sprint that there was ‘no doubt’ that all of the penalties were ‘well deserved’. The Dane even admitted that he resorted to ‘stupid tactics’ to defend from Hamilton and help Hulkenberg to open a gap on the Mercedes driver.

Oscar Piastri urges the FIA to be ‘tougher’ after Kevin Magnussen’s Miami GP incidents

But Magnussen admitting that he deserved all of the Haas driver’s penalties in the F1 Sprint at the Miami GP left a sour taste in Piastri’s mouth. The McLaren driver fears the precedent that an open admission like that could set and wants the FIA to be tougher with its handling.

Piastri said, via quotes by Speedweek: “I saw that after the Sprint he said that he deserved all the penalties he received. I think the fact that a driver who has received these penalties says he deserves them but still chose this path is not a good precedent.

“It’s one thing to get penalties and say it was 50:50 or I was treated badly. But to get so many penalties and say, ‘Yes, I deserve them all’, that sets a risky precedent that probably should be monitored a little more closely.

“I think we have to be tougher about this. It’s not the first time it’s happened and the driver who did it admits he did it for the team. For me, that’s wrong.”

Kevin Magnussen is two penalty points away from a one-race ban

Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

The penalties the stewards issued Magnussen meant he fell to 18th and last in the F1 Sprint at the Miami GP. But Hamilton also finished in P16 after he received a drive-through penalty converted into a 20-second time penalty after speeding in the pit lane behind the safety car.

Hamilton could not catch Hulkenberg for seventh on the road, either, as Magnussen’s overly aggressive defending allowed his Haas teammate to build an unassailable lead. The German took the chequered flag 7.293 seconds ahead of the Mercedes driver to register two points.

Magnussen, meanwhile, now faces the very real prospect of receiving a race ban due to his penalty points. His incidents in Florida, having also merited two penalties during the Miami GP, leave the Dane with 10 points on his super licence and 12 necessitate an automatic ban.

He has also earned all 10 points in 2024, so will not see any come off his record until March 2025. Magnussen received three penalty points after hitting Alex Albon in the Saudi Arabian GP on March 9 and two after causing a collision with Tsunoda in the Chinese GP on April 21.

The Haas driver’s incidents in the F1 Sprint at Hard Rock Stadium drew three penalty points. Magnussen also got two penalty points in the Miami GP for a 10-second penalty for causing a collision and 20s penalty for entering the pits and not changing tyres behind the safety car.

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