Oscar Piastri cut a miserable figure in his post-race interviews after throwing away a chance to win the Australian Grand Prix. The home hero was hounding team-mate Lando Norris for the lead at the time of his incident.

Piastri showed immense pace during the early stages of the race after regaining second place from Max Verstappen. The 23-year-old even reduced a sizeable gap to less than one second.

However, when rain arrived at the track on lap 44, both McLaren cars ran wide in the approach to the penultimate corner. Norris gathered it up and retained the lead, but Piastri was forced to take a wider angle into the corner after going deeper into the run-off.

When he did come back onto the circuit, Piastri ran straight across the corner and spun into the grass. After some careful reversing, he returned to the tarmac but was a lap down at that point. He eventually recovered to P9 with a last-lap overtake on Lewis Hamilton.

"Pretty disappointing," he told Sky Sports F1 when asked to summarise his Grand Prix. "It felt like for every lap, apart from one, I drove an incredibly strong race, just a shame to not have the result to go with it.

"I don't have anyone to blame but myself. I was a bit unfortunate to get stuck the way I did. It was only myself that put me there. Obviously disappointed. For me, the big positive is the other 56 laps of the race.

"It felt like I had strong pace in all conditions. That's what I will try to take away. Lando made the right decision and even with myself, given I was trying to reverse for about a minute, we still made the right decision. Just a shame to not have a better result."

For Piastri, this mistake could prove costly. Team-mate Norris scored a commanding victory after holding off the late threat of Verstappen, sealing a maximum 25-point haul.

McLaren's immense long-run pace indicates that the Woking-based squad are the team to beat in 2025, so trimming the 23-point gap to Norris at the top of the standings will prove tricky for Piastri.