Piastri identifies 'butterfly effect' that ruined Brazilian GP

Oscar Piastri has identified his off during qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix as a factor in being caught up in the melee at Turn 1 that effectively ended his race.

During qualifying before the storm hit, Piastri skated off the track at Turn 12, and left himself without a time and 10th on the grid having made Q3.

This left him vulnerable at the start, with those caught up in the incident, Nico Hulkenberg, Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon all starting directly behind the McLaren - with Magnussen's Haas giving the rear of the MCL60 a thump after he was clattered into by Albon.

Piastri sustained rear-wing and floor damage, although remarkably the team was able to repair it under the red flag and get him back out into the race, albeit one lap down with it becoming an extended test session.

Reflecting on his worst finish, 14th, since 12th in Italy, Piastri felt all the damage was done with the qualifying mistake, and that he'd left himself vulnerable.

"I hit the brakes for Turn 1, and then looked in the mirror and saw someone's tyre flying through the air and thought that didn't look very good," Piastri told media including RacingNews365.

"Then sure enough, I got an impact after that, and it is a shame and there's nothing I could have done [to avoid it].

"But when you qualify in those sort of positions, you leave yourself much more at risk, so it all kind of started from Friday unfortunately.

"I just tried to stay on the lead lap, and learn as much as I could as it wasn't the easiest of weekends.

"It was an amazing effort from everyone to get the car back together in 20 minutes, which was no easy feat. I've got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn't have had, so I learned a lot.

"If I had started even where Lando did, or started further up front, I wouldn't have been [involved] in the crash.

"You've got to try and put yourself in the best position possible, and there's no point in blaming bad luck and not reflecting on things you can improve."