Oscar Piastri has shared his experience of the most awkward Formula 1 cooldown room atmosphere he has encountered so far, from a growing list of moments.
Despite being in just his second year of F1, Piastri has already scored nine podiums in 40 starts—an impressive 25% podium rate. He recently revealed which cooldown room moment was the most difficult for him to navigate.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK, Piastri was asked a series of quickfire questions during a video session from the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking. When asked about the most uncomfortable cooldown room experience, he didn’t need much time to think.
“The most awkward cooldown room…” Piastri said. “I mean, I’ve not been in that many, but the most awkward one was after Spa, where George [Russell] won and Lewis [Hamilton] finished second.”
At the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix in Spa, the two Mercedes drivers were on different strategies. Russell opted for a one-stop strategy, while Hamilton stuck with a two-stop. The two approaches converged toward the end of the race, with Russell just managing to stay ahead of both Hamilton and Piastri.
However, hours after the race, Russell was disqualified for his car being slightly underweight. The disqualification hadn’t yet happened when the three drivers gathered in the cooldown room before heading to the podium.
“I finished third on the road, and then, of course, George got disqualified. It was tense,” Piastri recalled.
He added, “Lewis drove a great race. In a lot of circumstances, he should have won that race pretty comfortably, so I understood exactly how he was feeling at that point.”
Piastri could tell Hamilton wasn’t in a talkative mood, saying, “I could very much sense that Lewis did not want to be… he wasn’t in a chatty mood, so I just watched and looked at the highlights in silence and kept to myself!”