Piastri dismisses Hamilton theory after Las Vegas puncture

Oscar Piastri does not believe that the puncture he sustained following contact with Lewis Hamilton had an impact on his end result in the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Both Piastri and Hamilton suffered punctures when they battled for position on Lap 16, with Piastri pitting immediately for another set of Hards, forcing into another pit-stop, while Hamilton continued on before the puncture became evident just after he passed the pit-entry, meaning a full lap before he could pit.

Piastri ran as high as fourth, but pitted in the closing stages for Medium tyres to fulfill the regulation about running two tyre compounds, dropping to 11th.

He then carved into Pierre Gasly ahead, passing the Alpine for P10 and also banked the first fastest lap bonus point of his career, and felt the incident with Hamilton was just a racing incident.

Piastri was interested in one-stop

"It was kind of just an awkward one," Piastri told media including RacingNews365.

"Neither of us had really committed to the corner that much.

"Then we both committed at the last minute, and then I was trying to back out of it, but we just ended up meeting in the middle, and I had a puncture from that."

While the rookie was intrigued to see how a one-stop strategy would have played out for him, he doesn't believe that the collision with Hamilton impacted his end result.

"I don't think it really hurt our race that much in all honesty," he said.

"It would have been interesting to see if a one-stop could have worked from that point.

"It's always hard to know, we could have been a sitting duck, like [Pierre] Gasly. A lot of things for a lot of people went wrong in that race and I was in the same boat."