Oscar Piastri has expressed his satisfaction with Lewis Hamilton’s prompt acknowledgment of culpability for their collision at Monza over the weekend.
The seven-time World Champion swiftly apologised for the incident that occurred during their race on Sunday.
The incident unfolded as Lewis Hamilton was attempting to pass the Australian driver into the Della Roggia Chicane.
Unfortunately, their cars made contact, resulting in damage to the front-left of Piastri’s McLaren and sending both drivers into the escape road.
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This forced the rookie driver into an unscheduled pit stop and ultimately pushed him out of the points by the time the checkered flag waved.
In response to the collision, Hamilton received a five-second penalty and two penalty points on his super license for causing the collision.
During an interview with the F1 Nation podcast, Piastri was asked if Lewis Hamilton still remained on his “Christmas card list” following their on-track clash.
The McLaren driver chose a diplomatic approach in his response, stating, “Yeah, I mean, he apologised immediately, and he got a penalty for it.
“So I’m happy he owned up to it, at least.
“Of course, ideally, it wouldn’t have happened, but it’s quite easy to do in that corner where, you know, we’ve seen it plenty of times.
“So he’s still on there, just about.”
Host Tom Clarkson then suggested that the Italian Grand Prix appeared to be the weekend when Piastri truly “arrived” in the world of Formula 1, given his strong performance, which included out-qualifying his teammate Lando Norris and battling hard with him during the race.
However, Piastri didn’t fully share the sentiment, humorously responding, “I don’t know if it’s my arrival in F1 weekend, it certainly doesn’t feel like it now!
“But no, it’s been a good weekend on the whole, I think for myself.
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“Qualifying was quite good, the race started well and then went a bit downhill from there.
“But no, I feel like my pace this weekend’s been quite good.
“So I think from that aspect, quite happy.”