Oscar Piastri has revealed that discomfort with the seat in his McLaren car triggered the broken rib that he competed with in the run-up to Formula 1’s summer break.
The Australian went into the annual shutdown with the wind in his sails as he took his maiden F1 win in Hungary in a McLaren 1-2 and then placed second in Belgium.
Piastri’s achievements were propelled into an even more remarkable perspective as he disclosed that he had attained those feats whilst driving with a break to his rib.
Speaking prior to this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, Piastri explained that a minor incorrection on his pre-season seat fitting contributed to a pressure point developing.
“You make the seat at the start of the year and sometimes you get it a little bit wrong and some tracks don’t expose it,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“Going from Barcelona, Austria, Silverstone, they’re three pretty hardcore tracks.
“Just a bit of a pressure point, which eventually my rib gave up. It’s all good again now. We’ve changed the seat and fixed it immediately.”
Piastri stated that the problem was diagnosed once the British Grand Prix weekend ended, but he is certain that it existed several rounds before the Silverstone event.
“The scan was the day after Silverstone, but it was definitely broken before Silverstone,” he added.
Asked how many races he was racing under that compromised condition, Piastri answered: “Three, I would say. It was at some point around Austria.
“I think it was probably a bit disturbed in Barcelona and then Austria.
“Afterwards, it was pretty painful and Silverstone was a pretty nasty few days. We made some changes and it was already getting better, even with driving.”
Piastri has denied that an alteration to his training programme could have prevented the hitch, but minor short-term tweaks to the seat helped to temper the situation.
“I think we identified what we could change on the seat and, even with it being broken, the pain subsided a lot once we changed a few things,” he expanded.
“It was getting better, even with driving around. It was not getting any worse, it was actually getting better, so I think we already changed what went wrong.”
