Oscar Piastri has insisted he and Lando Norris are still free to “control our own destiny” as they contest the 2025 Formula 1 world championship, but said McLaren has further clarified its disputed position swap in Monza.
Two weeks ago Norris and Piastri were on course to finish second and third at the Italian Grand Prix behind Red Bull’s dominant winner Max Verstappen, until McLaren – with approval from Norris – allowed Piastri to make his only pitstop before Norris to help defend the Australian’s gap to fourth-placed Charles Leclerc.
A slow stop for Norris then caused the Briton to fall behind his team-mate and title rival, but because Piastri received pitstop priority against the usual order McLaren requested him let Norris past. McLaren’s reasoning was that the decision was the reverse scenario of a similar team orders call at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, when Piastri fell behind due to a powerful undercut for Norris.
McLaren’s approach led to fierce backlash from fans and observers, while Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff suggested its Monza call has now set a “difficult” precedent.
On the eve of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Piastri was asked to reflect on the Monza weekend and probed over how McLaren will cover off similar scenarios over the remaining eight race weekends. One of Piastri’s key takeaways is that he and Norris are still in charge of their own fortunes, and that he and the team are on the same page about what had happened and why.
“I do think we have enough freedom to control our own destiny in the championship,” Piastri said, as he was asked by Motorsport.com about the criticism for the outside world.
Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
“There’s no right answer to that decision. If we had done the opposite thing, then you’d have the opposite half of the fans saying that that was wrong and vice versa. So ultimately there’s no correct decision. Am I surprised [by the backlash]? Not really. I guess it’s a big moment from the race and I feel like a lot of fans are quite quick to jump on things that are deemed controversial, so I’m not that surprised.
“Ultimately, my biggest takeaway from Monza was that on pace and my own performance that weekend I didn’t deserve to finish higher than third, regardless of what else happened in the race.”
Piastri said McLaren did decide that one driver having a slow stop is simply part of racing, but added he would do the exact same thing if the Monza scenario repeated itself, even if the odds of that are low.
“That is a decision we’ve made, that a slow pitstop is a part of racing,” he said. “In 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.
“In exactly the same scenario then, yes, I would expect it to be the same, but I think the likelihood is virtually impossible. You can’t plan for every single scenario but I think we’re very aligned and ultimately I respect the team’s decision and trust that they’ll certainly do their best to make the right ones.
“We’ve had a lot of discussions about how we want to go racing and a lot of that is to stay for us. If we give out that information then we become very easy targets to pick off, because everyone knows what we’re going to do. So that’s all very aligned with all of us, but it stays in-house.”
