Oscar Piastri robbed of win by McLaren ‘bottle’ job at British Grand Prix

McLaren have conceded they blew a chance to win the British Grand Prix after Oscar Piastri was dudded by a race-ruining call.

Matthew Sullivan

4 min read

July 8, 2024 - 11:14AM

'They've left him out!': McLaren blunder ruins Piastri's race

F1

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Oscar Piastri’s wait for his maiden Grand Prix victory has continued after a McLaren pit stop blunder cost him dearly at the British Grand Prix overnight.

Lewis Hamilton won his first race in three years, breaking all sorts of F1 records, while Daniel Ricciardo finished 13th as Sergio Perez was 17th in a horror race.

The Australian started fifth on the grid and moved into second spot behind teammate Lando Norris early in the race as McLaren looked to be in a strong position to push for the win.

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The key moment of the race came on lap 28 when rain began to fall on the track at Silverstone, forcing teams to make a decision about whether to change tyres.

Norris and Piastri had enough space in front of the two Mercedes cars for McLaren to “double stack” their two drivers with pit stops one after another.

McLaren brought Norris into the pits to change to the more wet weather friendly intermediate tyres, but made the call to leave Piastri out on the track on slick tyres.

Martin Brundle exclaimed on Sky Sports: “They’ve left him out! They could have backed Piastri up without hindering Hamilton and brought themselves some space there.

“I think it would have been better to waste a few seconds while they swapped the equipment over.”

Piastri immediately struggled driving on the slick tyres, losing significant time and he had to pit one lap later for intermediates.

When he emerged from the pits, Piastri had fallen from second to sixth.

Watch McLaren’s pit stop shocker in the video above

Lando Norris went into the pits but Oscar Piastri was kept out. Photo: Fox Sports.

“He could have lost a second-and-a-half or two seconds down the back straight and not have hindered Hamilton, and then lost another couple on a pit stop,” a puzzled Brundle said.

“It would have been a better bet for Piastri. That played out horribly, that extra lap. Norris was almost back on him by the end of that lap where Piastri was tiptoeing around.”

Ted Kravitz: “This is such a tight ball. McLaren boss Zak Brown was actually off his seat in the pit lane with his hand upturned to the sky, wondering if this is the right thing to do.”

David Croft said “McLaren got it wrong with Piastri.”

Piastri ultimately finished fourth ahead of Carlos Sainz, 12.5 seconds behind Hamilton.

The overwhelming consensus from viewers was that Piastri had been completely dudded by the pit stop stuff up.

F1 commentator Matt Gallagher wrote on X: “Oscar Piastri lost an entire pit stop worth of time due to McLaren not double stacking. He finished 12.4 seconds off the lead.”

The formularacers account posted: “Piastri’s race has been ruined. Poor strategy from McLaren again.”

Your time will come, @OscarPiastri â¤ï¸
— F1 Australian Grand Prix (@ausgrandprix) July 7, 2024

One fan wrote: “Piastri within 15 seconds of the lead. That pit stop bottle, I think it cost him a win here.”

A second said: “McLaren you will pay for your crimes against oscar piastri.”

Another said: “McLaren didn’t just throw Piastri under a bus. They threw him under a Japanese bullet train.”

Pitting one lap too late cost Oscar Piastri badly. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

The Aussie is chasing his maiden grand prix win. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

The 23-year-old Aussie is now up to fifth in the drivers’ championship, but he is still chasing his first grand prix victory after winning the Sprint in Qatar last year.

“That was the unfortunate turning point of our race, really,” a frustrated Piastri said post-race of the pit stop blunder.

“We need to review what we could have done better there because clearly it wasn’t the right call in the end.

“We did everything else right in that race, pace was phenomenal. I just feel like we’ve had too many weekends recently where we came out of it thinking we should have had a much better result.

“I think we’ve got the hardest part nailed, to be honest. We’ve got a really quick car and it’s consistently quick everywhere. We just need to give ourselves a better chance of using it.

“I think we’ve had the potential to win a lot of races recently, so we just need to capitalise on that.”

Lando Norris felt he left a win on the table. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

McLaren’s race strategy also unravelled with the decision to put Norris onto slick tyres at the final pit stop, which allowed Hamilton to overtake his fellow Brit.

Chatting to Norris in the post-race cool down room, Hamilton said changing to medium tyres could have got McLaren the win.

He said: “You on soft as well? But you had two new mediums?”

“I know,” Norris replied.

“Yeah, you could have gone to the medium … a new medium would have been faster probably,” Hamilton said.

McLaren have had arguably the strongest race pace but haven’t been able to crack through for a victory since Norris’ maiden win in Miami in May.

Team boss Zak Brown wrote on X after the race: “We got that wrong, but we’ll learn from that and we move on. The drivers did a great job in tricky conditions today with Lando finishing P3 and Oscar in P4.

“The upside is we walked away with more points than our closest competitors.”

McLaren are third in the constructors’ standings, seven points behind Ferrari and 78 points behind Red Bull.

The F1 season continues with races in Hungary and Belgium later this month before the mid-season break in August.