Oscar Piastri’s clutch move snookered Max Verstappen and Lando Norris

Under scorching pressure, the Australian title hopeful jump started his campaign for the World Drivers’ Championship.

Oscar Piastri celebrates with his team after winning the Spanish GP Picture: Getty Images

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Oscar Piastri’s sentimental eyes peered out from his helmet when he hit the accelerator for his formation lap at a Spanish Grand Prix ­expected to begin with a high-pressure rumble down Formula One’s longest opening straight before the lead characters screamed into the first corner like Toad, Luigi, Bowser and Princess Peach skidding through the opening terrain of Rainbow Road in Mario Kart.

It was going to be on for young and old. The pre-race buzz at the Barcelona circuit was on Piastri’s ruggedness being tested by those opening 595m and a wide, welcoming corner while he had no-one to the left of him on pole position, and a clown to the right of him in Lando Norris, and more worryingly, a simmering Max Verstappen directly behind him on the grid. To steal from Keith Miller’s famous line about sporting pressure … having a Messerschmitt “up your arse” ain’t far removed from Verstappen being on your tail at the start of a GP.

What transpired next was my favourite sporting moment of the year alongside Latrell Mitchell’s no-look, no-feet-on-the-ground, no-way-Jose pass for Brian To’o to score in State of Origin I. Buddhist yogis cannot levitate half so well.

Oscar Piastri leads the field to the first corner at the Spanish GP Picture: Getty Images

Let’s start at the start with Piastri, with the mother of all clutch plays, because it involved an actual clutch, a moment of precision under pressure that became overshadowed by Verstappen going bonkers at the end of the race and driving like he really was playing Mario Kart.

So, the formation lap is the warm-up before the start of a GP. Drivers roll the arm over and get some heat in the tyres but Piastri took this one especially seriously. He started as if it was the race itself, knowing Verstappen was preparing to hurl his Red Bull down the opening straight and to hell with the consequences. Verstappen would dive-bomb into the corner in an attempt to muscle Piastri out of the way, and so when the Melburnian was on his formation lap, he had a question for his McLaren engineer, Tom Stallard.

Piastri: “How was my launch from the grid there?”

Stallard: “The clutch stroke was 1 per cent shallow. The clutch timing was late.”

Now, the clutch in an F1 car isn’t like the clutch in our manual cars. It’s a paddle behind the steering wheel that Piastri pushes in and out. To translate Stallard’s words to the King’s own English, he was saying Piastri’s first drop of the clutch was nearly perfect. A 1 per cent error is no real error at all. But he was too slow to fully release it, meaning he didn’t get away as quickly as he wanted to. Needed to. Because Verstappen was about to come after him like Pac-Man eating up power pellets; like King Kong going after T-Rex to protect a Naomi Watts in distress; like a four-time defending world champion getting heavy with a young wannabe.

Norris had been asked about Verstappen’s guaranteed assault and the start everyone was going gaga about.

Max Verstappen, far right, rounds the first corner splitting the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris Picture: AFP

“We both want to win,” Norris said of the McLaren drivers. “We’ll both be attacking. But we both know rule No.1.”

Rule No.1 is avoiding a crash. Verstappen had nothing to lose. He’d given up on the world championship, conceding he would be succeeded this year by Norris or Piastri, and so he might as well go heck-for-leather. Norris wimped out of the start, really. He didn’t take on Verstappen, and he didn’t chase Piastri, steering clear of trouble and dropping back to third. He left it to Piastri and Verstappen to duke it out.

Sentimental eyes peered out from his helmet … you’ve gotta watch a replay of the start. An F1 start involves building the engine revs to their optimal point on the grid then engaging the clutch in the first millisecond of the race. It’s so clean and perfect from Piastri that here is what happened. Nothing. Everything was meant to happen and nothing did. He was too good.

We don’t know Stallard’s actual thoughts but I’m guessing Piastri’s clutch stroke was no longer 1 per cent shallow; I’m guessing the clutch timing was no longer late; I’m guessing Stallard’s hands went in the air at the sheer magnificent flawlessness of it. All the pre-race hype, all the nerves, the explosion of action when the race began, and Piastri knowing he was under the pump from the most ­aggressive and reckless driver in history, and he took off as smoothly as someone embarking on a leisurely Sunday afternoon drive through unhurried and unoccupied country roads.

Oscar Piastri dominated the race at Catalunya Picture: Getty Images

He nailed it, absolutely nailed it, slipping away while Verstappen fumbled in the dark, grasping for a weakness that wasn’t there.

It’s a classic. I’ve watched a replay a million times. Piastri’s further ahead at the opening corner than he was on the grid. Only Princess Peach might have caught him. He didn’t just hold off Verstappen, he took off in a McLaren car that goes nearly as fast as Gout Gout. Might be a defining moment of a world championship year. “A great start,” Piastri said after the chequered flag was his. “We stuck to our guns.”

Equally interesting was Norris’s safety-first approach. He didn’t want to know about the rumbles. Perhaps it was the smartest decision of his season. He was intent on avoiding fender-benders and getting on the podium. Mission accomplished. He had the ­opportunity to take on Piastri on those first 595m but conceded defeat before the lights even went out. I wonder if that was telling.

Sport’s greatest tour is having the week off before everyone converges on the fair city of Montreal for the Canadian GP next Sunday. Clearly, there’s been an admin bungle when the European calendar was being mapped out. F1’s most traditional and important swing takes in Italy, Monaco, Spain, oh, Canada, Austria, England, Belgium, Hungary, Netherlands and back to Italy as McLaren’s principal Andrea Stella confirms Piastri and Norris are being completely left to their own devices in the all-papaya fight for the world title.

“The battle is exciting,” Stella told Sky Sports after the Spanish Grand Prix. “It’s exactly what (McLaren CEO) Zak Brown and myself have worked very hard for, to be in position to have a very competitive car, with two competitive drivers, and make sure at some stage the championship becomes a matter between the two drivers. This was always going to be our mission, our objective. We have a very strong set of racing principles in which Lando and Oscar are completely engaged. All we want to see is a great battle, ­entertaining for F1 fans, and for McLaren, and we look forward to the remainder of the season.”

Piastri and his sentimental eyes, on the prize, are first in the rankings with 186 points. Norris is second on 176 points. Daylight, moonlight, sunlight, starlight, candlelight, Toad, Luigi, Bowser and Princess Peach are third before Verstappen bobs up on a doomed and distant 137 points.

Former world champion Nico Rosberg says it is foolhardy for McLaren to trust the drivers as Piastri and Norris fight it out for the world title Picture: Getty Images

“We have a racing approach which is the result of a process with Lando and Oscar that has been going on for months,” Stella said. “It’s based on principles and undertakings, these kinds of aspects, and when it comes to racing your teammate, or any other car, in fairness, you can’t be too prescriptive. You can’t say, ‘If your wheel is one wheel ahead, then this happens’. We have great conversations, constantly, and I’m sure it’s going to be an exciting and fair battle. We trust our drivers. This is the most important factor. We trust our drivers.”

Seated next to Stella was the finest Sky Sports analyst, the knowledgeable, straight-talking 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg, who won a ding-dong, increasingly antagonistic all-Mercedes battle with Lewis Hamilton for the crown. They took each other out at the Spanish and Austrian Grands Prix; Hamilton defied team orders in an attempt to shaft Rosberg at the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP. He listened patiently to Stella’s words before suggesting there was no interest like self-interest in the second half of an F1 season.

“My two cents?” Rosberg said. “That’s a recipe for disaster, to trust the drivers.”