Oscar Piastri sends hilarious radio message after Yuki Tsunoda crashed out of Hungarian GP qualifying

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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri had one of his best qualifying sessions in his Formula 1 career at the Hungaroring, narrowly missing out on pole position during a dramatic session.

The Hungarian Grand Prix was expected to be an incredibly hot race weekend, but unexpected rain just before the session started caused havoc.

Sergio Perez crashed out at the worst possible moment, while Mercedes driver George Russell was also caught out in Q1.

The changing track conditions made no difference to McLaren who are once again staking their claim that they have the fastest car on the grid.

Max Verstappen’s updated Red Bull looked very fast and briefly topped Q3 at one point.

However, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both usurped the current leader of the Drivers’ Championship.

Piastri will be frustrated that he couldn’t find the 23 thousandths of a second needed to secure his first Grand Prix pole position.

He and Verstappen both got two runs in Q3 while Norris’s second effort was halted before it even began because of a red flag brought out as a result of Yuki Tsunoda’s dramatic crash.

Piastri was heard on his team radio, via F1TV, talking with his race engineer before the session restarted with just a couple of minutes to go.

He made a very amusing comment about Tsunoda ahead of taking to the track for the final time to try and steal pole position from his teammate.

Instead, he had to settle for McLaren’s first front-row lockout in 12 years.

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Oscar Piastri caught making hilarious comment after Yuki Tsunoda crash

Talking in the pit lane before Q3 restarted, Piastri’s engineer said: “Ricciardo…I believe is the car behind you. I can’t tell if it’s Ricciardo or Tsunoda but they’re 9^th and 10^th.”

Piastri: “I think Tsunoda’s missing a couple of wheels, so I don’t think he’ll be doing many laps.”

His race engineer replied: “I guess that’s fair!”

The conversation was necessary as a result of a scary crash for Tsunoda heading out of turn five during the last few minutes of qualifying.

The Japanese driver was pushing to improve on his 9^th-place position at the time but went slightly wide and was airborne when he hit the barriers.

Tsunoda thankfully was OK after his crash, although there was significant damage to his car as a result of the collision.

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McLaren must learn from their mistakes at Silverstone to win the Hungarian Grand Prix

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris will know that despite starting on the front row in Hungary, the threat from Verstappen behind them off the line is one they need to take very seriously.

The Dutchman normally get a supreme launch – as Norris discovered at the Spanish Grand Prix – but if both McLaren cars can stay ahead of him beyond the first corner then they have a brilliant opportunity to rack up plenty of points.

At Silverstone, McLaren made mistakes with both drivers’ strategies, pitting Piastri too late and putting Norris onto the wrong tyres.

Piastri has been told to be more confident in his strategy calls and if he’s the man under pressure from Verstappen to create a gap to Norris then he’ll need to be perfect to secure a second-place finish.

His British teammate will be dreaming of adding a second victory to his Formula 1 CV and Norris had to pull off something spectacular to beat Verstappen in qualifying.

He may have to replicate those heroics again on Sunday to return to the top step of the podium.