'Stewards were hunting down Piastri? 'This is the second race he ruins for Verstappen'

08:24, 09 Jul

byNorberto Mujica

David Croft sees Oscar Piastri as the moment that defined the whole race weekend, and in the Sky Sports F1 Show Podcast gave his view on the much talked about matter.

Before the safety car came our Piastri was over 13 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen, an advantage Croft didn't believe the current championship leader would yield.

"This was my moment of the weekend. Moments can be good or bad, but this changed the destiny of the race. I think Oscar more than likely would have gone on to win the race had it not been for this moment," Croft said.

"Now, he was a bit unlucky in that the safety car lights went off quite late in the lap and was called in quite late. He was trying to warm up his brakes at that phase," added th modern British voiced for F1, before ultimately revealing his stance on the matter: "but you can't drive erratically. I think he was banged to rights."

Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri

'This wasn't the first time Piastri had done this'

Croft believes this to not be the first time Piastri had done something similar, as he told his co-hosts in the F1 Show Podcast, and the previous time he did it, the same driver was on the receiving end as well, Max Verstappen.

"He'd done this before in the race and I think race control were already on to him a little bit in terms of what he was doing at a safety car restart."

"I remember back to Spain where he very much aggressively slowed down the pack there to his benefit and managed to cool down Max's tyres to the extent that Max had a big moment when we got going again."

"And I could see why he was doing it, but in those conditions, with that visibility and that spray, you can't put the anchors on in the way he did. That's why he got the penalty," judged Croft.