Oscar Piastri shares surprise F1 2024 injury with X-ray image revealed

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri has revealed that he was nursing a fractured rib during the first half of the F1 2024 season.

After an impressive debut season in 2023, Piastri has gone from strength to strength in F1 2024 with McLaren emerging as a major threat to reigning World Champions Red Bull.

Oscar Piastri reveals broken rib injury

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Piastri claimed four podiums across the first 14 races of the season, including his maiden F1 victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix last month as he led only McLaren’s second one-two finish since the 2010 season.

Taking to Twitter on Sunday morning, Piastri revealed that he was struggling with a broken rib as the first half of the F1 2024 campaign unfolded.

In a post marking his achievements so far this season, Piastri posted images of him celebrating on the podium in Hungary and Monaco, the scene of his first podium of F1 2024.

Included in the selection of pictures was an X-ray image of a fractured rib, with an arrow pointing to the affected area.

Piastri wrote in the accompanying caption: “First part of the season done. First GP victory. First broken bone. Rib’s enjoying the break.”

The X-ray image is timed at 11:12am on Monday July 8, the morning after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone where Piastri finished fourth.

The Hungarian Grand Prix took place less than two weeks after the X-ray was conducted, suggesting that Piastri was still in some discomfort when he claimed his first F1 victory in Budapest.

PlanetF1.com understands that Piastri sustained the injury around the time of the Austrian Grand Prix at the end of June and is now fully healed.

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Piastri is not the only McLaren driver to have been in the wars this year, with team-mate Lando Norris pictured with a bandaged face in April while partying in Amsterdam.

Speaking to reporters at the Miami Grand Prix the following weekend, Norris confirmed that he had sustained the facial injury after cutting his nose on broken glass and insisted it “looked a lot worse than it is.”

He said: “A good day out. I’ve got a lot of friends, a good group of friends there, so it was a good weekend.

“Already the next morning, I flew straight to Miami. I enjoyed my days off which is always a nice thing in such a busy schedule.

“It was just cut on glass, it was just a bit of broken glass, a little bit silly. It looks a lot worse than it is, everyone thought it was horrendous, but it’s just a little cut.

“I wish it was a cooler story, but sadly it is not. It was just a good day with my friends, wherever I am in the world if I can spend a few days with my friends I’m going to enjoy it.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, people made a bigger deal out of it than it was.

“It was just a little cut but I am not embarrassed, you can’t hide in the world today, not that I’m trying to hide it.”

Piastri is managed by former Red Bull driver Mark Webber, who competed with a 38-centimetre titanium rod in his right leg for several years after a cycling accident during a charity event in 2008.

In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com at last month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, Webber, who also raced with a broken shoulder at the end of the 2010 season, hailed Piastri as a “very special talent.”

He said: “It’s been enjoyable working closely with him.

“He’s obviously a very special talent. He knows what’s right for the future to continue to unleash that talent.

“Potential is a word I hate. Potential is whatever potential is, but you need to make sure that you go out and he knows actions speak louder than words and that’s how he operates.

“He’s had a very, very special start to his career.

“There’s so much experience on those first two or three rows, especially with just how sensitive the cars are now and how tight the times are, which is really a credit to him that he’s been able to hang out there, week in week out.”

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