Piastri: McLaren’s Orders and Their Consequences in Baku’s Collisions

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri has revealed that the team orders imposed by McLaren at the Italian Grand Prix still resonated in his mind during the complicated weekend in Azerbaijan, where he suffered several accidents. In Monza, in September, Piastri, then championship leader, was ordered to concede second place to his teammate, Lando Norris. This happened after Piastri gained the position following a mistake in the pit stops. At the time, Piastri qualified the decision as “fair” and stated that he and McLaren were “aligned” on the decision. Two weeks later, in Azerbaijan, Piastri suffered accidents in both qualifying and the race. This point-less weekend marked the beginning of a streak that left him 24 points behind Norris, with three races to go. Piastri admitted that Monza’s decisions affected him.

Obviously, the previous race was Monza, where I didn’t feel my performance was particularly good, and obviously the pit stop issue happened.

Oscar Piastri

In addition, Piastri commented on the weekend in Baku, where things didn’t work well and he felt he was forcing his driving. He also mentioned problems with the engine during free practice 1 and the challenge of managing Pirelli’s C6 tires.

In Italy, Piastri was the first to pit, despite not leading the race, due to McLaren’s concern for Charles Leclerc, who was in fourth place. A slow pit stop delayed Norris, which led to the exchange of positions. Since then, Piastri has not won any race. Piastri described the weekend in Azerbaijan as his “worst weekend” in racing. Despite this, he highlighted the learning obtained, both from a technical and emotional point of view.

Obviously, it was a terrible weekend, but I think the amount of learning we had from that weekend, from a technical point of view, from an emotional point of view…

Oscar Piastri

Piastri concluded that looking at the experiences of other drivers with difficult weekends helps to put things in perspective, but that it is still necessary to learn from these moments.