SÃO PAULO — Oscar Piastri dramatically crashed out of Saturday's Interlagos sprint race as title rival Lando Norris claimed the full haul of points with a decisive victory.
Piastri spun coming out of Turn 2 and went straight into the barrier, ending his race on the spot.
The Australian appeared to go through a spot of water that had been dispersed onto the curb by Norris's car as he had gone through the corner moments earlier.
Norris held off the charging Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli late on to take home the eight points on offer in the shortened sprint race.
The result extended his lead over Piastri to nine points. It's his biggest title lead since the Chinese Grand Prix, when he led Max Verstappen by eight points.
Saturday's sprint might have signaled the beginning of the end of Verstappen's status as a wild-card title contender, as he finished fourth, meaning he is now 39 points off Norris with four races to run, starting with the São Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday.
The contrasting fortunes of Norris and Piastri continued the remarkable turnaround in the seasons of the McLaren drivers. Two weeks ago Norris ended Piastri's six month spell in the lead of the championship by winning the Mexican Grand Prix.
Piastri's form has spiraled since he won August's Dutch Grand Prix and the crash will be another chapter to that story. Piastri was not the only driver caught out — Sauber's Nico Hülkenberg and Alpine's Franco Colapinto also spun coming through the same corner moments afterwards.
«I will try to put this behind [me],» Piastri told Sky Sports about his crash.
«There's a lot more points on offer tomorrow, so the better job I can do in Qualifying to get a good starting spot, the better it will be.»
Colapinto's crash
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