Oscar Piastri out of Australian GP after bizarre sighting lap crash

Oscar Piastri will take no part in the Australian Grand Prix after suffering a bizarre crash on his way to the grid at the Formula 1 season opener.

The McLaren driver had been set to start the Albert Park race from fifth place on the grid, but that slot will now be left vacant after he lost control during an up shift and slammed into the wall on the exit of Turn 4. 

After leaving the pits, Piastri was seen being shaken about by the ferocity of the gear shifts, while the torque spikes resulted in significant wheelspin. When exiting Turn 4, he ran what appeared to be a normal racing line, using the exit kerbs, but was unable to maintain control. 

The crash caused significant damage to the left-hand side of Piastri's McLaren, with the front and rear corners both taking heavy hits. 

Having seen his team-mate in the wall, Lando Norris asked: "Did something happen or he just broke down?" 

"He lost it on the exit kerb of Turn 4, doing a shift," explained the team.

Reacting to the disappointment, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown told Sky Sports: "We've not seen anything on the data so far. He didn't say anything on the radio, so we'll do a postmortem after the race and see what happened. 

"For now, we've got to focus on the car we have in the race and get the excitement level back up, because that's definitely disappointing for Oscar in his home race."

"I'm sure he'll be sore about that one for a while, but these racecar drivers know how to recover quickly, so definitely not the way you want to get started, but he'll be back."

McLaren is left with only Norris on the grid, who gains a place on the grid - sitting in the sixth-place grid slot, but the de facto fifth-place driver. 

The Australian Grand Prix gets underway at 4am UK time.