Oscar Piastri initially finished fourth at the 2025 F1 Las Vegas GP, but ended up being disqualified from the race along with his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, for excessive plank wear on their cars following FIA’s post-race scrutineering checks.
It capped off what was already an underwhelming weekend for the Australian, who had lost even more ground to his title rival and had seen Max Verstappen winning and closing the gap in the fight for second.
Piastri’s reaction to the DSQ
Following McLaren’s double disqualification at the Las Vegas GP, Piastri has maintained his 24-point gap to Norris, so enjoyed a net gain on that front – but lost further ground to Verstappen, who is now level with him at 366 points after 22 rounds of the F1 championship.
“Disappointing to come away from this weekend with no points after an unfortunate disqualification due to skid wear,” Piastri said in a statement from McLaren after the news broke. “With how close the grid is, we’re always looking at where we can gain performance, and we didn’t get it right this time.
“We now need to reset, refocus and push to get the best points possible in the final two rounds, both tracks that we’ve been strong at previously.”
Lawson’s “ambitious” move that left Piastri baffled by stewards’ inaction
Disclaimer: As the FIA ruled the outcome several hours after the race, the following sequence of quotes – from his post-race written media chat – took place when the Australian was still classified in fourth place.
Piastri’s race hadn’t been the easiest anyway, as he was dive-bombed by an out-of-control Liam Lawson, who just about managed to make the first corner on the opening lap after making hefty contact with the McLaren driver.
The stewards deemed that whilst Lawson was moving right in order to avoid colliding into George Russell’s Mercedes, who in turn was locking-up to avoid crashing into Sainz’s Williams. No further action in that case.
When asked about it after the race, Piastri called Lawson’s move “ambitious” and was left baffled as to why there wasn’t a penalty, given he was penalised for trying to avoid a collision two weeks ago at the São Paulo GP – and expects that to be a talking point at the annual meeting between the stewards and the drivers at the Qatar GP:
“Ambitious, that’s for sure. But apparently okay [for the stewards],” he said of Lawson’s lunge down the inside. “So, obviously I think we’ll probably be talking about that one next week in our meeting.
“But yeah, that made things tough and a few more difficult moments in the first stint. Obviously getting passed by Charles [Leclerc], which wasn’t ideal. I think our pace in clean air was actually very good, so at least that was positive.
“And the strategy was superb today. But just too many difficult moments in between.“
Why he will raise the matter with the stewards in Qatar
On the lack of penalty for Lawson’s over-optimisic attempt, Piastri says he won’t “even bother” trying to understand it at that point, and instead will look into raising these questions in the meeting with the stewards next week in Qatar, as there’s “some tweaking” that needs to be done to F1’s guidelines regarding how the drivers can go racing.
He was also cognizant of the fact the drivers themselves were largely responsible for making these guidelines as they are today:
“I’m not even going to bother trying to compute it. It is what it is, I think,” he said. “Again, we’ve got a meeting with the stewards next week to kind of give our feedback.
“Obviously, the guidelines kind of came in place from the drivers. And I think for the large majority of incidents, it’s been very helpful.
“But clearly, there’s some tweaking that needs to be done. Because I think the balance [means] potentially people [are] gaming the rules a little bit.
“There’s been a few incidents that I don’t think are really what we want to see in racing. So I’m sure we’ll discuss it next week and be better as a sport moving forward.“
Race was “more difficult than hoped” despite no damage from lap 1
The McLaren driver clarified he didn’t carry any significant damage from what was a “wheel-to-wheel” contact in the end, and explained that his race was simply “more difficult” than he hoped. He finishedhis way to finishing – on the road – behind Kimi Antonelli, who was on 48-lap old hard tyres by the chequered flag:
“I don’t think there was any [damage]. I think it was wheel-to-wheel from what it felt like, and I was quite impressed I still had four wheels, to be honest.
“But I don’t think there was any damage after that. It just took a while to get into a rhythm at the start.And yeah, once I got some clean air, I felt like I got into a nice rhythm and the pace was good.
“But outside of that, it was a bit more difficult than I had hoped.”
“Things to tidy up” – Piastri’s honest assessment of his recent slump
Piastri admitted his recent slump in form is a “combination” of things he can control in his driving and decision-making. But he also mentioned some factors outside of his control – which he believes sums up well his F1 Las Vegas GP weekend, which feature strong pace at times, but didn’t translate into an equally strong result:
“I mean, it is what it is. Sometimes we can do as well and try and find the silver lining in things. Again, I think the pace in clean air today was good.
“And there’s been things out of my control that haven’t gone well recently. But there’s also been things in my control that haven’t gone well. And I think that race was a combination of both.
“So there’s things I need to tidy up. But I think there’s been some good positives from the last two weekends as well. Just the results have not really gone with that.”
Piastri is now 24-points behind title rival Lando Norris, and tied on points with Max Verstappen at 366 points with two grands prix and one sprint remaining.
