McLaren's Oscar Piastri drops a 5-word post as the lights go out in the circuit during the F1 pre-season test

Oscar Piastri dropped a hilarious post on X asking who was behind the lights going out at the Bahrain International Circuit during the afternoon session on Day 1 of the pre-season test at Sakhir. Piastri participated in the morning session but was still present with his team as Lando Norris went out on the track in the afternoon.

During the final few hours of the afternoon session on Day 1, the floodlights at the circuit were turned on after the sun had set in Bahrain. But soon after, all the floodlights and a few lights within the paddock went out due to a power cut at the circuit.

Due to this, a red flag was thrown as it was not safe for the drivers to go out on track amid the dimming light and without floodlights. This stopped any cars from going out on track and teams lost over an hour of precious track time.

Oscar Piastri, presumably with not a lot of things to do during the power outage, went on social media and posted a hilarious message on his X account. The Aussie humorously questioned who was behind the lights going off as he wrote:

"Who turned the lights off?"

After the lights came back on, the session resumed with 50 minutes remaining amid very light rain, a rare sight in Bahrain. Oscar Piastri's teammate Lando Norris set the timing sheets alight in the little time he had though, ending the day in overall 1st position with a lap time of 1:30.430s.

Piastri, who had competed in the morning session, finished in 17th position, with a 1:32.084s lap time, 1.654 seconds behind his teammate. A pre-season test's results may always be taken with a pinch of salt though, especially on Day 1 of the proceedings.

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Oscar Piastri off to slow start on Day 1 of Bahrain test

Oscar Piastri in his #81 McLaren - Formula 1 Testing in Bahrain - Day 1 - Source: Getty

Oscar Piastri had an underwhelming time during Day 1 of the Bahrain pre-season test as the Aussie spent a long time in the garage as the McLaren mechanics worked on his car. Piastri ended the first session of the day in 8th position.

Piastri was hardly seen out on track during the starting hours of the test, as the Aussie only did a few laps and spent a lot of his time inside the garage. The Aussie made up for the time lost later in the day as he ended up completing 66 laps.

The 23-year-old presumably experienced some sort of trouble with his Papaya car as he did not set any impressive lap times, with a best of 1:32.084s, which was over sixth-tenths slower than the morning session leader Kimi Antonelli (1:31.428s).

Piastri was also the slowest in the speed-trap during the morning session, setting a top speed of 310.4 km/hr. The McLaren driver will hope for a better showing on Days 2 and 3 of the test and also look to get closer to his teammate, who was at the top of the timing sheets after Day 1.