Was Piastri Sao Paulo Grand Prix penalty harsh?

Piastri locked up, understeering into Antonelli, whose car ended up punting Ferrari's Charles Leclerc out of the race, who later claimed the Australian wasn't to blame, an objective verdict from the Monegasque who was ended up with the worst consequences.

The general view was that Piastri/Antonelli should've been treated as a racing incident, and pundits seem to agree, one of them being former Formula 1 driver turned pundit Martin Brundle.

In his post-race Sky Sports F1 column on Sao Paulo, Brundle dissected the incident; he wrote: "He [Piastri] had a tremendous run towards turn one with a good chance to pass both Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc down the inside to seize an important second place. He simply had to go for it, and I'm sure given the same opportunity 20 more times, he would do it every time.

"Antonelli had Leclerc to his right but with space, and he must have known Piastri was on his inside as he swept towards the apex. Piastri locked up, and there was contact," he added. "Had his confidence been higher, he might have released the brakes and claimed the apex of the corner and sorted it out from there, but he was driving into a wedge and instinctively braked.

"The problem for Oscar is that the initial optics didn't look at all good in that he'd locked up, hit Antonelli's rear axle with his front, skittled two cars, including one into instant retirement, and gained two places.

"The Stewards decided he was 100 percent at fault and dished out a 10-second penalty and two points on his license, which leaves him with six of the permitted 12 before a race ban.

"That was very harsh," Brundle maintained. "There was a clear mitigating circumstance that he was squeezed by the Mercedes and that this action contributed to his lock-up and contact. It would have been easy to justify reducing that to a five-second penalty—as Oscar said, 'I can't just disappear'.

"Considering it as a typical racing incident would be marginal. No penalty at all, and therefore by default wholly blaming Antonelli, not realistic," Brundle concluded.

The 1997 F1 World Champion, Jacques Villeneuve, shared Brundle's sentiments regarding Piastri's penalty and said when talking to BetVictor Casino: "Piastri's penalty was a little bit harsh.

"I'm sure he'll feel hard done by that penalty. It seemed a bit tough. But we have to remember, the FIA has cameras we don't have. So, they have different and more angles.

"So that's why it's very dangerous for us to pronounce ourselves sometimes. But I still found it a little bit harsh," the Canadian maintained.

Piastri finished the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in fifth place and heads into the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend 24 points behind teammate Lando Norris in the F1 Drivers' Championship.