Oscar Piastri crashes out of Azerbaijan GP as Lando Norris title fight reignites

Oscar Piastri offered Lando Norris a route back into the World Championship fight after crashing out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on the opening lap. The Australian, who entered the weekend with a 31-point buffer to his McLaren team-mate, came a cropper at Turn Five.

Piastri started the race from ninth on the grid after crashing into the Turn Four barrier during his second Q3 run on Saturday. When the lights went out, the 24-year-old jumped the start before slowing to a crawl, allowing the entire field to pass him in the first sequence of corners. Then, at Turn Five, he went deep on the brakes, locked up and crashed hard into the outside wall.

Demonstrating his shock, Sky Sports F1 analyst Karun Chandhok said: "He has just locked up. He's just locked up and gone straight! He just sailed into the barrier. He just snatched the brake. I can't recall anyone hitting that barrier all weekend."

With Piastri out of the equation, Norris had a golden opportunity to eat into his title rival's World Championship advantage. However, after missing a golden opportunity in qualifying on Saturday, he was forced to battle back from seventh on the grid.

Despite putting just two grid positions between himself and Piastri, Norris refused to put his qualifying result down as a missed opportunity. "No, because I still did everything I could," he declared on Saturday. "If I won every race, I could be world champion by now, but I didn't.

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"I just said the tricky conditions... I went out first, and it was just the wrong decision to make in the end. If everyone else got a yellow behind because someone else went off behind me, you wouldn't be asking me this question." He added: "Sometimes it goes your way around here, sometimes it doesn't. We thought we took a better option."

Meanwhile, at the head of the field, Verstappen converted his pole position into the race lead on the opening lap. With Piastri out of the equation, the reigning world champion had the opportunity to close the deficit to the Australian to 69 points with seven races remaining.

However, despite winning in Monza in round 16 of the campaign, the Dutchman does not consider himself a title contender. McLaren boss Andrea Stella disagrees, though. "Pole position in Monza, victory, pole position here, Red Bull are a very serious contender to win races and a very serious contender for the Drivers' Championship," he declared.