Oscar Piastri has outlined that McLaren is “aligned” on how it intends to go racing after the dubious swap between the team’s drivers in Formula 1‘s Italian Grand Prix.
McLaren dominated the headlines last time out at Monza as the team orchestrated a switch between Piastri and Lando Norris in the closing laps that divided opinion.
Piastri inherited second when Norris endured a sluggish stop that dropped him behind his team-mate, who had pitted one lap earlier to cover Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
McLaren soon ordered Piastri to concede the position to Norris, though, an instruction that the Australian obliged with despite the duo’s ongoing championship battle.
Piastri, whose lead over Norris is now 31 points, divulged that there have been discussions involving all parties about the incident prior to this weekend’s race in Baku.
“I mean, naturally there’s been thoughts, yes,” Piastri told media including Motorsport Week. “We’ve had good discussions with the team.
“Obviously, a highly talked about moment, but we’ve had a lot of discussions, clarified a lot of things,
and we know how we’re going to go racing going forward, which is the most important thing. So what’s happened is done, and I’m excited to get racing here.”
However, Piastri was unwilling to expand on what those conversations entailed and the scenarios that could lead McLaren to repeat the call that was made at Monza.
“No, I can’t get into every scenario, no,” he added.
“I think from Monza there was another factor outside of the slow pitstop being the order we pitted in that was a contributing factor to why we swapped.
“So, that one I’m quite happy to talk about because it’s happened. But any other scenarios, again, you can’t plan for every single scenario that’s going to happen.
“But I think we’re very aligned and ultimately I respect the team’s decisions and trust that they’ll certainly do their best to make the right ones.”
Piastri would expect to heed same call in identical scenario
Piastri has admitted that he would still expect to heed the same instruction in the improbable circumstance where an identical situation arises in the remaining races.
“I think in exactly the same scenario, then yes, I would expect it to be the same,” he addressed.
“But I think the likelihood that you’re going to have the exact same scenario is virtually impossible. So every scenario is going to look different.
“There was, again, another factor that was ultimately deemed to be the reason for the swap. And I respect that decision.
“So it’s impossible to know. But if the situation was the same, exactly the same, then I expect it to be repeated, yes.”
Piastri doubles down on Monza radio response
Regardless, Piastri has doubled down on his initial response over the team radio, where he revealed that slow pitstops are excluded from McLaren’s racing guidelines.
“I do still stand by it,” he admitted. “And that is kind of a decision we’ve made, that a slow pitstop is a part of racing.
“Obviously, in the car at the time, the context wasn’t there about kind of what else had happened in terms of the pitstop sequencing.
“So, again, it was decided that there was another factor for the reasoning in swapping. So, again, every situation is going to look a bit different.”
Piastri was reluctant to provide a concrete answer when asked whether he would have adhered to a request to reverse the order had it meant surrendering a race win.
“It wasn’t, so I don’t know. It wasn’t in that scenario,” he retorted.
“Would it have made it a bit more difficult? Probably yes, but I don’t know if the outcome would have been different. Not planning on finding myself in that position.
“Ultimately, the biggest thing for me from Monza was it was a weekend where I deserved to finish third. I didn’t deserve to finish second because of the pace I had.
“I was quick at certain points, but not quick enough the whole weekend. And ultimately, that’s kind of my main takeaway from that, what I’m trying to focus on going forwards.”
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