Oscar Piastri’s Formula 1 championship hopes took another blow as he crashed out of the Brazilian Grand Prix sprint race and caused a red flag.
Piastri slid off the road at Turn 3 on a damp Interlagos F1 circuit, out of the race and out of third place - turning a potential two-point loss to his race-leading McLaren team-mate Lando Norris into a likely eight-point loss.
That would drop him to nine points behind Norris if Norris goes onto the win race.
Kimi Antonelli, running in second place, believed Norris ran a little wide and dragged some water from the kerb just before Piastri passed through there.
Piastri ran over that same kerb and was sent spinning into the barriers - the same fate that Nico Hulkenberg and Franco Colapinto suffered just moments later.
With heavy hits into the wall, Piastri and Colapinto couldn’t recover, while Hulkenberg was able to limp his wounded Sauber back to the pits.
The race was red flagged after eight of the 24 scheduled laps due to barrier repairs being required. Colapinto's impact was especially violent.
When the race restarts, Norris will lead Antonelli, George Russell and Max Verstappen, who overtook Fernando Alonso on the opening lap of the original start and gained an extra place from Piastri’s retirement, to run fourth.
