Oscar Piastri revealed he ignored a McLaren call not to push in the second stint to make the move on Charles Leclerc that won him Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Piastri retained second place at the start and clawed to inside DRS range on Leclerc, but he soon slipped back to end up six seconds behind once he pitted on Lap 15.
However, the undercut enabled Piastri to reduce the gap to Leclerc and he then completed a bold lunge into Turn 1 on Lap 21 which proved to be a race-winning move.
Piastri would survive Leclerc’s relentless onslaught right until the Monegasque ran into issues with his rubber, allowing the Australian breathing room to bring it home.
The now two-time F1 race victor has admitted that Leclerc’s blistering pace in clear air during the opening stages inspired his deep dive on the brakes to take the lead.
“I think that ranks as probably my best win of my career, I would say,” Piastri beamed.
“I think trying to soak up that pressure for so long in that race, yeah, that was incredibly tough.
“In the first stint, when Charles was just pulling away pretty comfortably, I thought we were going to be second at best.
“Even Checo [Sergio Perez] was keeping me very honest, and I could see Carlos [Sainz] was very quick at the end of the medium stint.
“I saw an opportunity or half an opportunity after the pit stop and knew I had to try and take it.
“I knew that getting to the lead was going to be one thing.
“But I knew I had my work cut out for me after that to try and stay there because, yeah, I didn’t feel like we were the quickest in that first stint. So, it was very hard work.
“You know, I think having clean air did help quite a bit. But yeah, that’s, I think for me, has to be one of the best races I’ve done.”
Piastri has divulged that his race engineer Tom Stallard instructed him to preserve his tyres to prevent a repeat of the drastic drop he experienced in the opening stint.
However, Piastri explained that he decided to overrule that advice with his vital overtake one lap later to make up for the opening that he thought he missed earlier on.
“I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer because I basically tried to do that in the first stint and completely cooked my tyres,” he recalled.
“So, my engineer came on the radio and said, you know, let’s not do that again, basically. And I completely ignored him the next lap and sent it down the inside.
“So, I think at that point, you know, I felt like trying to stay back and wait for Charles to deg was never going to happen. I thought we were just going to secure his P2.
“I had a similar opportunity in the first stint. I felt like on lap two or three, I was, I think, just within DRS but didn’t, you know, fully capitalise on that opportunity.
“And I got to the end of the straight thinking, oh, ‘if I had have done a couple of things a bit differently here’, I maybe had a chance.
“So, when I had a similar opportunity after the pit stop, I had to take it. And yeah, you know, I wouldn’t be sat here without that.”
Piastri believes that he wouldn’t have had another chance to displace Leclerc’s Ferrari had he either not attempted the move or overcooked his braking and gone wide.
“If I didn’t take that opportunity then, I was never going to have another one, I think,” he added.
“So, I mean, credit to Charles, he was incredibly fair. I think maybe he thought I was going to sail on into the runoff, but I was pleasantly surprised that I actually made the corner.
“So it was a high-risk, high-commitment move, but that’s what I needed to do to try and win the race, because I wasn’t really going to be that keen to finish second.”
