Oscar Piastri wasn’t happy with Lance Stroll’s behaviour under blue flags during the final stages of the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, saying it was like the Canadian was in his “first go-kart race.”
Leading in the early stages of the GP at Monza, Piastri, running a two-stop strategy had to chase the one-stopping Charles Leclerc in the final phase of the race.
As the Ferrari driver was managing his tyres through to the end of the race, Piastri was able to push hard, keen on closing a near 20s deficit to Leclerc with 15 laps of the race to go.
The Australian had to overcome Carlos Sainz, nail perfect laps and clear backmarkers if he was to have a slim chance of beating Leclerc to victory.
On his charge, Piastri found Stroll’s Aston Martin in his path, and rued the Canadian didn’t adhere to blue flags correctly.
Speaking on the final phase of the race, Piastri said, “I mean, I asked basically straight away what pace I needed to do to go and get Charles. And the pace I needed was basically what I did for the first few laps.
“At that point, I was pretty optimistic. You know, I lost a decent amount of time behind Carlos. You had Stroll driving like it was his first go-kart race and I don’t know what went through his brain when he saw his blue flag. That cost another second.
“And, yeah, you know, I needed that stint to be perfect to win that race. And, you know, those little things are ultimately what cost us a bit of a chance.
“It would have been a long shot anyway, but, yeah. It was certainly not far off from being able to achieve it.
“But yeah, I was pushing flat out to try and do it. I couldn’t have gone any faster than that. So yep, just came up a bit short.”
Piastri’s pursuit meant he ended up 2.6s short of denying Ferrari a home win at Monza courtesy of Leclerc, but the McLaren driver felt the team did the “right thing” by going for a two-stop strategy.
“I think for me it was a big risk to do that [one stop], the graining of the tyres has been a big topic all weekend,” he said.
“You know, in practice, once you got graining, it was basically game over. Even in the first in on the Mediums, it was pretty difficult.
“And yet, when we made the second stop for myself, my front left tyre was pretty heavily grained and, you know, I was going slower and slower.
“So it seemed like a sensible decision to pit again. Yeah, I guess nobody really expected the graining to clear up on Charles from what I heard.”
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