McLaren’s team order was a “fair request,” claims Piastri

Having been asked to hand over his second place to his team-mate Lando Norris, championship leader Oscar Piastri claimed that he could accept McLaren’s team order, branding it as a “fair request.”

Both McLaren drivers endured action-packed opening lap at Monza. Lando Norris was eager to overtake pole-sitter Max Verstappen at the first corner, but the Dutchman cut the chicane to defend his position.

Red Bull asked Verstappen to give back the position to Norris which he quickly did to avoid any possible penalties. However, the McLaren driver was unable to hold on to the lead for long as Verstappen regained it a few laps later.

His team-mate exchanged third spot with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc multiple times on the opening lap. The Monegasque was able to emerge victorious from their first-lap battle, but he was not able to keep the faster McLaren behind for long.

From then on, Norris and Piasti looked set to finish second and third behind the dominant Verstappen. McLaren were aware that Verstappen was out of reach, and they were eager to try something different in terms of strategy. They extended the first round of pit stop as they were waiting for a potential safety car intervention, which did not come in the end.

Piastri pitted first to defend his position from Leclerc, who was fairly quick on his fresh tyres. When Norris also pitted, McLaren endured an issue which saw thr Briton fall behind his team-mate.

McLaren then took the unsual step of enacting team orders to swap them back around – which is where they came home.

Asked whether he questioned the request to let Lando Norris through, Piastri said that McLaren had a pre-race plan for similar scenarios.

“It’s something that we’ll discuss. We have discussed it before. I think today was a fair request.

“Lando qualified ahead, was ahead the whole race, and lost that spot through no fault of his own. I said what I had to say on the radio. And once I got the second request, then I’m not going to go against the team.

“I think there’s a lot of people to protect and a culture to protect outside of just Lando and I. Ultimately that’s a very important thing going forward.

Asked whether he lost the chance of fighting for the race victory by spending the opening stages of the 53-lap race behind Charles Leclerc, Piastri admitted that it would have been a tough ask as he was struggling with the balance of his car.

“Certainly not Max. I think with Lando, potentially, but even once I got ahead of Charles, I was struggling a bit. The balance just was not in a great place.

“I think as the Medium stint went on, we seemed to get stronger and stronger, and I felt like I got stronger and stronger too, which was nice.

“But ultimately just didn’t quite have the pace. And once you got close to people, unless you had a fair bit more pace than them, it was very tough to stay behind,” concluded Piastri.

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