Piastri labels track limits embarrassing, McLaren protest refused

Track limits violations, when drivers place all four wheels over the white line marking the edge of the track, made headlines at Spielberg last year due to the huge number of incidents - 1,200 in the race alone.

This year, gravel strips have been placed outside turns nine and 10 but Piastri fell foul of the stewards for apparently going too far at turn six.

McLaren have protested Piastri's drop and justifying the decision, Team Principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports: "We wanted to look at the evidence whereby the car was beyond the track limits beyond any reasonable doubt.

"I cannot say that the beyond reasonable doubt is satisfied. There are a couple of principles. One that the system used needs to have adequate resolution and the second one is the methodology used for one car needs to be applicable to all cars, like if you use a helicopter view for one car it needs to be used for all cars.

"We are normally very supportive of the FIA and recognise everyone is trying their best," Stella insisted. "But in this case we couldn't agree that the car was beyond the track limits beyond any reasonable doubt."

As for Piastri he told Sky Sports television: "For me, it's embarrassing. We do all this work with track limits, put gravel in places and I didn't even go off the track, I stayed on the track. It was probably my best Turn Six and it gets deleted.

"I don't know why they've spent hundreds of thousands or millions trying to change the last two corners when you still have corners you can go off...

"There's no reason this corner should be an issue for track limits, especially when you stay on the track like I did. Or not in the gravel.

"I think it's embarrassing that you see us pushing right to the limit of what we can do, and if I am one centimetre more I'm in the gravel and completely ruin my lap anyway," the Australian concluded.

Piastri's teammate Lando Norris qualified second and will start alongside Red Bull's triple world champion Max Verstappen, who won the Saturday sprint from pole with Piastri second.

After the refusal of the protest, Piastri commented in McLaren's press release: "It's disappointing to have had my lap deleted due to track limits, a decision that I find quite surprising.

"My attention is now on gaining places from P7 in tomorrow's race. We'll work hard overnight to see where we can make some small improvements and head into Sunday ready to score strong points for the team," he added.

As for Stella, he commented on the Stewards' decision saying: "Oscar had his best lap in Q3 - which was worth a P3 starting position - deleted by what looks to be a questionable approach to enforcing track limits. Especially, in a place like Turn 6, in which track limits are enforced by the track configuration itself."

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, Additional reporting by GrandPrix247)