Oscar Piastri offers 'motocross' warning over major Austin F1 bump

Oscar Piastri believes the bump in the Turn 1 braking zone at the Circuit of the Americas is akin to a "motocross jump".

Throughout the weekend at the United States GP, drivers have been critical of the track surface, including Max Verstappen calling the bumps "unacceptable."

The Austin track is built on former marshland near to Austin Bergstrom International Airport, with the underlying ground shifting as a result.

COTA boss Bobby Epstein feels the track surface is acceptable, aside from into Turn 1, where McLaren's Piastri believes the bump is akin to a "motocross jump", especially under braking.

"I think the majority of the track is probably better than what it has been in previous years," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365, about the bumps.

"But the bump into Turn 1 is a bit like a motocross jump, and then the one into Turn 19 is not that much better.

"So in qualifying, it is not too bad as you brake after the bump, but in the race, you're braking right on that bump, especially if you are overtaking someone into Turn 1.

"We've spoken with the FIA about it, and I'm sure it will be fixed for next year."

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Piastri's qualifying reflections

As for his qualifying, Piastri will start seventh at Austin, having been promoted up one place after team-mate Lando Norris had a time deleted for track limits.

However, the McLaren was just over eight-tenths slower than the pole time of Kimi Antonelli as both Piastri and Norris continue to struggle to extract performance from the tricky MCL40.

"It has been tough from lap one; just trying to get performance out of the car has been very, very challenging," Piastri noted.

"At points in qualifying for Lando, at least it looked like there was potential in it, and I think we both felt there was potential in it, but the difference between extracting that potential or not is like half a second, so it's been very, very tough to get that lap time out of the car. 

"I've not managed it at all. But I think when either of us has really pushed the boundaries, we can't keep it on the track. So it's been very challenging for sure. 

"I think we're probably a couple of tenths off Mercedes and Red Bull, and naturally as drivers, you try and make that up as well. 

"So I think there's probably a little element of that, but I think the car in general just needs to be driven on a knife edge all the time, and I think at a track like this, where there are so many sequences of corners, so many bumps, it really doesn't take much at all for it to go very wrong. 

"I did a reasonable job in the areas that I really wanted to focus on, but just trying to put a lap together has been almost impossible."