Heartbreak for Piastri: “When you finish second, it hurts.”

Oscar Piastri says “it’s hard not to be very disappointed” after losing the victory in Monza, running out of laps on his pursuit of the one-stopping Ferrari to see McLaren claiming a bittersweet 2-3 finish at the Italian Grand Prix.

Losing out to the adored home team’s brave pitstop strategy, Piastri, who stopped twice during the 53-lap scorcher, was forced to settle for a painful silver medal.

Joined by his teammate on the iconic podium, McLaren’s fears of it being their ‘race to lose’ came to life in front of the Tifosi as they finished the weekend with a 2-3, however, still carving down the points margins in both championships. 

“Yeah, it hurts. I’m not going to lie, it hurts a lot,” Piastri said. 

“We did a lot of things right today, you know, there were a lot of question marks on the strategy going into the race. 

“Yeah, from the position we were in with the tyres looking like they did, doing a one-stop seemed like a very risky call, and in the end it was right. 

“So, yeah, very, very happy with the pace, with the race that I managed to achieve. 

“Just when you finish second, it hurts.”

Before the disappointment had sunken in, Piastri’s 53-lap race was a bold one.

The 23-year-old wasn’t happy with settling for what seemed like a second-place finish behind his teammate, taking matters into his own hands as they launched off the line in a move Lando Norris described as “too close for comfort”.

Lining up side-by-side on the grid, the front row-occupying McLarens were each other’s greatest competition for the Lap 1 lead. 

Speeding at the five lights, Norris’ streak of poor starts looked set to end as he covered off Piastri into Turn 1, however, the #81 was quick to fight back.

The Australian pushed his way past Norris around the outside of Turn 4 in an aggressive but clean overtake for the lead, leaving Norris in a state of shock, and soon to be overtaken by Charles Leclerc.

“I mean, I braked later and got around the outside,” Piastri said.

“There wasn’t really much more to it than that.

“Yeah, you know, we both got through unscathed.

“I knew once I hit the brakes, you know, I kind of got ahead a bit and yeah, I knew I was kind of entitled to stay on the outside.

“And yeah, ultimately, for 38 laps of that race, it put me in a race-winning position.

“So yeah, for me, it was just a good first lap.”

Oscar Piastri battles with Lando Norris during the Italian GP. Image: Sam Bagnall / LAT Images.

Settling into the lead, the race looked near-certain to be Piastri’s second career victory before Ferrari changed tactics.

Leclerc was a constant threat to Piastri during the first medium tyre stint of the race, running within the McLaren driver’s DRS range and setting continuous fastest laps.

Piastri was reprieved of the threat on for just one lap, with Leclerc pitting in reaction to a successful undercut executed by Norris.

Making his way into the pitlane on his next tour of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Piastri commenced the middle stint of his race with Alex Albon acting as a buffer between himself and his win-hungry teammate.

The concept of ‘Papaya rules’ was aired across the McLaren radio waves, a concept believed to mean the #4 and #81 were allowed to race each other, however, within the agreed parameters of leaving more space than they would with their rivals. 

On Lap 24, the lead was Piastri’s once again with Norris 1.8 seconds behind and Leclerc 2.3 seconds behind.

Cautious of his teammate, the boy from Brighton was released from Norris’ threat when the #4 was called into the pits for his second stop first.

At the same time, Piastri was asked his opinions on running the race as a one-stopper, a call which he opted against and ultimately lived to regret.

“In hindsight, [we should have gone for the one-stop]. But, you know, everyone’s a legend on Monday after the race or, you know, at the chequered flag. 

“Today, unfortunately, we got it a bit wrong, and, you know, myself being a big part of that, we had everything to lose from being in the lead of the race.”

Speaking on the denied radio call, Piastri added: “I think, for me, it was a big risk to do that.”

“The graining of the tyres has been a big topic all weekend. You know, in practice, once you got graining, it was basically game over – even in the first stint on the Mediums, it was pretty difficult. 

“And, yeah, 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.”

Rejoining after a slow second stop, Norris was closer to the rear of his teammate, dragging Max Verstappen momentarily along with him before the driver in the RB20 fell off. 

The teammates worked together to hunt down the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc ahead, with the birthday boy the first target in P2.

Piastri honed in on Sainz on Lap 44, discarding of the first one-stopping Ferrari just one lap later into the Ascari chicane.

With just eight laps remaining, Leclerc was now 11.7 seconds ahead, meaning Piastri had to gain around 1.5 seconds per lap to close down the interval to the lead.

Oscar Piastri, 2nd position, Charles Leclerc, 1st position and Lando Norris, 3rd position on the podium after the Italian GP. Image: Andy Hone / LAT Image

That task was near impossible despite the torn-up state of Leclerc’s hard tyres, with the battle for the top step still four seconds wide as they crossed the line to start Leclerc’s eventual victory lap.

“I guess nobody really expected the graining to clear up on Charles, from what I heard,” the second-place finisher said.

“So yeah, in hindsight, clearly stopping once was the right thing to do, but from that point in the race with all the information that we’d gathered through the weekend, it seemed incredibly risky and. 

“You know, that’s kind of the blessing and the curse of leading the race or, you know, being at the front, full stop – you know the guys behind you can react to what you do. 

“And, you know, for Charles, if he did a two-stop, he would have locked in third, and if he did a one-stop and fell off the cliff, he still would have finished third, but, of course, he pulled the one-stop off and Ferrari look like the hero today. 

“Obviously it hurts at the moment, but I think in the moment it was the right thing to do.”

McLaren Team Principal, Andrea Stella said was proud of his drivers’ “very close race with Ferrari”, also congratulating the team he experienced much success with in the past at Monza as a performance and race engineer with Maranello-based outfit.

“Leclerc was very quick today, and he was able to win the race by executing a one-stop, while we felt that we needed to go on two stops to make sure we had enough tyres to make it to the end of the race,” he said.

“This meant that we couldn’t capitalise on our very strong position on the grid.

“Apart from this, it’s been a very positive weekend in Monza, it confirmed that the car is strong and performs well on all kinds of circuits after the upgrades in Zandvoort, and we gained many points in the Constructors’ Championship and some points in the quest for Lando in the Drivers’ Championship. 

“So, with this championship situation and the performance of the car, we look forward to an exciting final part of the season.”

After missed opportunities during the final Grand Prix of the European portion of the calendar, eight fly-away races now lie ahead of the grid, with the first kicking off in Baku across September 13-15.

Image: Steven Tee / LAT Images

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