‘What on Earth?’… Martin Brundle can’t believe what he noticed after Oscar Piastri’s Q1 exit

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Oscar Piastri suffered his worst qualifying session of the year at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Saturday. Piastri had maintained a 100% Q3 record through the first 19 races.

The Australian looked like a contender for pole position after topping FP3 on Saturday morning. But an error-strewn Q1 led to a major upset.

Piastri found himself under pressure after locking up at turn four. He later lost a lap time for exceeding track limits at turn 12, just before the stadium section.

The 23-year-old hadn’t qualified lower than fifth for a Grand Prix since Austria. But he did tarnish his stat sheet in Sprint qualifying last time out in Austin.

Piastri started that race from 16th after an SQ1 knockout. That will give him a glimpse of the fightback task he faces on Sunday.

He can take solace from what teammate Lando Norris managed at this very event last year. Norris also lined up 17th last year but rallied to finish fifth.

Martin Brundle stunned that none of Oscar Piastri’s lap times were good enough at Mexico City Grand Prix

Martin Brundle offered his immediate reaction to Piastri’s woes live on Sky Sports F1. He suspects that the two-time race-winner spurned the best of his tyres with his mistakes.

The former McLaren driver also noticed that Piastri’s deleted lap time wouldn’t have been good enough to progress. Replays showed that he didn’t necessarily gain an advantage by leaving the track because he briefly beached his car on the exit kerb.

Piastri’s blunders could hurt McLaren in the constructors’ championship. They came into the event with a 40-point lead, but barring some good fortune in the race, Piastri may struggle to crack the top six.

“What on earth is all that about?” Brundle said. “It’s not getting the peak of the tyre grip with errors or track limits. The 1:17.6 that was deleted for Piastri would not have even got him into Q2 either.”

Brundle’s warning to McLaren about treatment of Oscar Piastri

It wasn’t long ago that Piastri was being mentioned as an outsider for the championship. But he’s now fallen more than 100 points behind Max Verstappen.

Charles Leclerc is nearly 30 ahead after his dominant victory at the US GP. This is perhaps Piastri’s first real wobble since his maiden victory in Hungary.

McLaren issued team orders to Piastri last time out in Austin, confirming that he’s effectively their second driver amid the fight between Norris and Verstappen. He was told to slow down so his teammate didn’t fall to fifth after his five-second penalty.

Brundle fears that Piastri could be another Rubens Barrichello if Zak Brown doesn’t handle the situation carefully. Barrichello was the clear number two to Michael Schumacher at Ferrari in the early 2000s.