Oscar Piastri has opened up about the cause of the broken rib he was racing with before the Formula 1 summer break
Oscar Piastri has revealed that a poorly fitted seat was the reason he raced with a broken rib for at least three races before Formula 1’s summer break
The McLaren driver revealed after the Belgian Grand Prix that he had recently broken a rib – and had even raced with it in his maiden win in Hungary. Now, for the first time, Piastri spoke about the cause of the problem and said he suspected that his custom-made seat had caused a pressure point.
“You obviously make the seat at the beginning of the year and sometimes you do something wrong,” he said, ”On some tracks it’s not noticeable, but I think coming from Barcelona, Austria and Silverstone, those are three pretty tough tracks.”
“So it was just a small pressure point that eventually gave up. But now everything is fine again. We changed the seat and fixed the problem straight away. So yes, everything is back to normal. “
First part of the season done.
First GP victory.
First broken bone.
Rib’s enjoying the break pic.twitter.com/xee5myxNTP– Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) August 11, 2024
Piastri explains that he only found out about the broken rib after the British Grand Prix, but suspects that it had already happened a few races earlier.
“The scan was the day after Silverstone, but it was definitely broken before Silverstone,” said Piastri, who replied to the question of how many races he suspects the fracture lasted for: ”Three, I would say. But yes, it was definitely sometime around Austria. “
“I think it was a little bit disrupted in Barcelona, and after that in Austria it was quite painful. So it was quite uncomfortable for a few days. But yes, we made some changes and it got better already, also when riding. So it’s all good.”
Piastri also revealed that there was nothing he could do physically to solve the problem, but reckoned that the changes he had already made to the seat had calmed the situation.
“I think we found out what we could change on the seat and even though it was broken, the pain eased a lot after we changed a few things,” he adds: ‘Even in Budapest and Spa it didn’t get worse, it actually got better. ’
