‘Too many mistakes’: Australia’s Oscar Piastri off to chequered start at Bahrain Grand Prix

Australia’s Oscar Piastri has failed to get past the first stage of qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix in an underwhelming start to his Formula One career, blaming himself for making too many mistakes.

The 21-year-old from Melbourne will have to start from 18th of 20 on the grid in Sunday’s race after his struggling British team McLaren were left contemplating their car’s lack of race pace.

Piastri’s experienced teammate Lando Norris himself only just managed to be one of the 15 drivers to negotiate Q1 on Saturday and was then eliminated at the second stage, finishing 11th quickest overall.

In his first qualifying session, Piastri was timed at 1 minute 32.101 seconds for his fastest lap, which meant he failed to get through to Q2 by 0.409 sec.

“I made too many mistakes, especially on that second lap in Q1,” he said, while suggesting that some debris on the track from the bodywork of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, which triggered a red flag, hadn’t helped his cause.

“Yeah, just too many mistakes on my side.”

But Piastri remained optimistic about making up places in Sunday’s race.

“I think we can try to make up some spots tomorrow, that will be the plan, definitely,” he said. “Our straight-line speed is probably not our strongest point. For me, it’ll be a good opportunity to get back into the swing of racing. It’ll be my first race for quite some time, so I’ll make the most of it. I’m excited.

“I wish today had gone a bit better and a bit higher up but tomorrow’s a new day.”

Despite his disappointment, there were also words of encouragement from McLaren CEO Zak Brown about the young Victorian’s performance.

After a good final practice run on Saturday in which he had finished ninth fastest and was quicker than Norris, there