Piastri Bemoans Wrong Strategy Call That Killed His Chances Of Winning British Grand Prix
F1Tuesday, 09 July 2024 at 12:00
Oscar Piastri discussed the wrong call that killed his chances of competing for the 2024 British Grand Prix win and even put him out of the fight for the podium.
Oscar Piastri is one of only two drivers from the top four teams still without a victory in 2024, and according to Zak Brown, the 23-year-old could have won the race had it not been for a bad strategic call.
Former F1 driver and commentator Martin Brundle shared the same view in his column for Sky Sports, writing that the Australian driver was one of the four who could have potentially won the race.
Everything was looking right for both McLaren drivers around lap 27 when they got into the lead of the race, but it was at that point that McLaren should have pitted them both on intermediate tires at the same time as the track was getting too wet.
Instead, the Papaya team decided to keep the Aussie out for one more lap, during which he lost much more time than he would in a double stack pit stop behind his teammate. Speaking to the media after the race, he said:
"I don't think it gets any harder than that. I think there's some things to review. I think double-stacking would have been the right call, but hindsight's a wonderful thing."
"I think we need to see if we had any information that told us that was going to be a better choice. Obviously, a little bit painful given the gap."
F1 drivers can see a gap to the driver behind on their steering wheel, and Piastri revealed he knew he was screwed when Lando Norris, who pitted on the lap before him, closed the gap to five seconds before he even entered a pit lane.
"As soon as I went past pit entry, the last couple of corners were very, very tough. I could see on my dash that Lando was like five seconds behind me when I pitted, so I knew I was in a lot of trouble with him. I knew it was the wrong call basically instantly."
"I think we just need to review if we put enough weight on that decision. Obviously when the two cars are close like that you lose a lot of time doing a double-stack."
At that point, Norris was still in the game for the race win, but the British team made a mistake when he came for second pit stop a lap later and pitted on a wrong tire compound- soft.
Piastri, who pitted for medium tires during his second stop, was the fastest driver towards the end of the race, but unfortunately, he was too far behind everyone by that point because of the mistake from earlier on.
"The conditions were getting trickier, but it was very, very hard to judge. It was only really half of the track that was really difficult until the lap that I stayed out, and then the whole track became difficult."
"So very difficult for everybody involved, but, in hindsight, double-stacking would have given a very good chance of winning."
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