Oscar Piastri penalty labelled 'unacceptable' at Las Vegas Grand Prix

Grand Prix Drivers' Association director Carlos Sainz has spoken out against a potentially championship-altering penalty given to McLaren F1 star Oscar Piastri.

The Australian was given a 10-second penalty last time out in Brazil for an incident which saw him clip Kimi Antonelli, sending the teenager into Charles Leclerc to end the Ferrari's driver's race.

The penalty ruined Piastri's race on an afternoon which likely would have seen him finish second rather than fifth (and maybe even challenging team-mate Lando Norris for the win), a key swing of at least eight points in a tight championship battle.

Leclerc admitted after the race that he didn't particularly blame Piastri for the accident, and Williams star Sainz has now called the penalty 'unacceptable' when speaking ahead of this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix.

The Spaniard also spoke more broadly about race stewards over-penalising what many drivers consider to be racing incidents, including two that he himself was involved in.

Sainz: We need to solve penalty issues

"I think we need urgently a catch-up and try and solve it," said Sainz, "because for me the fact that Oscar got a penalty there in Brazil is unacceptable, honestly, for the category that we are in and being the pinnacle of motorsport.

"Everyone that's seen racing knows that that is not Oscar's fault at all, and everyone that's really raced a race car knows he could have done nothing to avoid an accident there and he got away with a 10-second penalty. For me it's something that I don't understand. I didn't understand my Zandvoort penalty, I didn't understand why Ollie [Bearman] got a penalty when we both collided in Monza.

"So there's been not one but multiple incidents this year that for me are far from where the sport should be."

He continued: "It's difficult to judge, because it could go both ways. You could criticise the way the guidelines are written and we ask the stewards to obviously apply those guidelines as firmly as possible and the stewards are just doing their job.

"Or are the guidelines [just] guidelines and the stewards should take them as guidelines and not as black or white? It could go both ways. I'm not sure what the solution is, but it is very clear for me that after what I saw in Brazil, something is not quite working."

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