Australian debutant Oscar Piastri has endured a challenging and eventful Formula One debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix, coming off the track but getting through the sessions with his McLaren intact.
The 21-year-old driver finished 12th in morning practice and 15th out of 20 in the afternoon on the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday. 'My first official Friday done. I feel like I'm making progress, which is good,' Piastri said. 'I'm still making a few mistakes here and there, so I'm not 100 per cent happy with my driving but I feel like we're in a reasonable place.'
There were early wobbles with Piastri oversteering on one corner and coming off the track before regaining control. In the second session, he locked up and ran wide after taking evasive action to avoid Lance Stroll's slow-moving Aston Martin. The incident resulted in Piastri locking up and running off the track at the first turn.
Ultimately, the Australian negotiated the rest of the session with no further alarms, clocking a fastest lap of 1 minute 32.024 seconds, 1.117sec behind leader Fernando Alonso. He was just under half a second slower than his British teammate Lando Norris.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown told Sky Sports: 'Oscar's doing exactly what we want him to do, which is just get some laps in and get familiar with the car. So far, things are going well.' Team principal Andrea Stella added: 'It’s been a productive first day of the 2023 season. The cars ran without issue, and we worked through our planned programme.'
