The Australian and his McLaren teammate Lando Norris both failed to start the Chinese Grand Prix due to car problems.
Champions McLaren discovered an electronics issue with Norris’s car before it was due to head out on track.
Piastri’s car was then pushed off the grid and back to the garage.
Mechanics removed the floor on Norris’s car, with the team still working to resolve the problem as the grid closed for the second race of the season.
Following investigations into the issues on each car, it was two different electrical problems on the power unit side which caused the double DNS today. #McLarenF1 | #ChineseGP 🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/nKVI0O1Pmc
— McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team (@McLarenF1) March 15, 2026
“It’s an electric issue on the power unit, which I think was the same for Lando, but it’s not the same electrical issue,’’ Piastri told reporters shortly after Sunday’s race start.
“They (the power units) are just incredibly complex, and there’s so many rules on the power units that you sometimes change one thing and it has a very unintended consequence somewhere else.
“It’s been a while since I’ve watched two grand prix on TV,” added the Australian, who crashed out of the season-opener in Melbourne on his reconnaissance lap before the start of the race.
While Piastri’s disappointing start to the season continues, 19-year-old Antonelli celebrated the first win of his F1 career after besting championship-leading teammate George Russell in a Mercedes one-two in China from pole position.
Antonelli became the second-youngest race winner in the sport’s history after four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who took his first victory in 2016 with Red Bull at just 18 years of age.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton finished a distant third in Shanghai, the seven-time world champion’s first podium since he joined Ferrari last year, with teammate Charles Leclerc fourth after a lively battle between the two.
“Thank you everyone. Thank you so much. You made me achieve one of my dreams,” said Antonelli over the radio after taking the chequered flag.
“I’m speechless. I’m about to cry to be honest,” he said in his first interview as a winner in front of the Shanghai circuit crowd, before doing just that.
An emotional day for Kimi! 🥹#F1 #ChineseGP pic.twitter.com/PnhvRgTxbv
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 15, 2026
It was a nervous finish for the Italian, who locked up and went wide with three laps to go, cutting his lead over Russell to 7.4 seconds and finishing 5.515 clear.
It was Mercedes’ second successive one-two in two races after Russell led Antonelli in the Australian opener last weekend.
“I gave myself a little bit of a heart attack towards the end with the flat spot (on his tyres),” said the first Italian winner since Giancarlo Fisichella for Renault in Malaysia in 2006.
“It was a good race.”
AAP
