The first surprise was that Oscar Piastri made a mistake. The second was how he reacted to it.

The Australian Formula 1 star saw a near-certain victory slide from his grasp in slippery conditions at last Sunday’s British Grand Prix, where a 10-second time penalty for what race stewards deemed “erratic braking” behind the safety car saw Piastri drop to second place behind McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

Oscar Piastri was clearly unhappy after a penalty cost him the chance to win the British Grand Prix.Credit: Getty Images

Norris – who qualified behind Piastri and never headed him on track prior to the Australian’s penalty – won his home grand prix for the first time to slice Piastri’s world championship margin to just eight points at the halfway point of F1’s 24-round season – a 14-point swing that could prove critical as the 2025 campaign boils down to an internal fight for the title.

No wonder Piastri was peeved.

“I’m not going to say much, I’ll get myself in trouble,” Piastri bristled in his post-race media debrief.

“Apparently you can’t brake behind the safety car any more.”

Piastri’s economy of words and exasperated body language was jarring for a driver who is typically so even-keeled to the point of being robotic. This one stung; Piastri’s breakout season has been built on a paucity of errors and emotional stability, his trump cards against Norris in the same machinery.

Was Piastri’s Silverstone reaction an early sign that there are cracks appearing in the 24-year-old’s demeanour as the biggest prize in world motorsport sits within touching distance? Did Norris out-scoring him on a weekend where he had the hometown hero covered for pace lead to a temporary loss of composure? And will the British Grand Prix prove to be a key inflection point before the season’s second half?

While we’ll need to wait until the upcoming back-to-back rounds in Belgium (July 27) and Hungary (August 3) to better assess the latter, what’s more explainable are the reasons........

© Brisbane Times