Oscar Piastri was unimpressed with Lance Stroll’s driving when he lapped him during the Italian Grand Prix.
The pair crossed paths as Piastri was closing on Leclerc in the final stint of the race. Piastri fell short of catching the race winner by 2.6 seconds and blamed Stroll for costing him a significant chunk of time.Piastri began chasing Leclerc after making his second visit to the pits, while Leclerc ran to the end on a single stop. The McLaren driver first had to overtake Leclerc’s team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr for position, then lost more time putting Stroll a lap down.
“I asked basically straight away what pace I needed to do to go and get Charles,” he said. “And the pace I needed was basically what I did for the first few laps.
“At that point, I was pretty optimistic. [But] I lost a decent amount of time behind Carlos. You had Stroll driving like it was his first go-kart race. I don’t know what went through his brain when he saw his blue flag. That cost another second.
“I needed that stint to be perfect to win that race and those little things are ultimately what cost us a bit of a chance.
“It would have been a long shot anyway but it was certainly not far off from being able to achieve it. I was pushing flat out to try and do it, I couldn’t have gone any faster than that, just came up a bit short.”
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Piastri is unsure whether McLaren could have emulated Ferrari’s one-stop strategy and not given up the lead of the race due to the graining they saw some drivers experience on the hard tyres.
“In practice, once you got graining, it was basically game over. Even in the first stint on the mediums it was pretty difficult.
“When we made the second stop, for myself, my front-left tyre was pretty heavily grained and I was going slower and slower. So it seemed like a sensible decision to pit again.
“I guess nobody really expected the graining to clear up on Charles’ [tyres], from what I heard. So, in hindsight, clearly stopping once was the right thing to do. But from that point in the race with all the information that we’d gathered through the weekend, it seemed incredibly risky.”
He pointed out Leclerc could afford to risk not pitting a second time as he was unlikely to finish lower than the third position he was in to begin with.
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“That’s kind of the blessing and the curse of leading the race, or being at the front. The guys behind you can react to what you do.
“For Charles, if he did a two-stop, he would have locked in third. And if he did a one-stop and fell off the cliff, he still would have finished third.
“But, of course, he pulled the one-stop off and Ferrari look like the hero today. Obviously it hurts at the moment, but I think in the moment it was the right thing to do.”
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Todfod (@todfod)
1st September 2024, 19:07
I doubt Oscar would have been able to pass Leclerc even if he didn’t get held up. Lance being oblivious to the real racers on
track is quite amusing though.. he’s still an amateur even this it’s his 8th F1 season.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
1st September 2024, 19:20
Hats off to Ferrari today. Impromptu strategy, something they often get wrong, was the difference and they deserved to win.
As for Stroll, every race is his first go-kart race. A gold-plated go-kart of course, as provided by daddy.
Applebook
2nd September 2024, 0:16
I think that a one stopped for Leclerc as always on the table, but it was compromised when they pitted him too early (and still lost him track position anyway).
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
2nd September 2024, 7:56
Yeah, my friend was in the waiting room at the hospital asking how the race was finishing. When I messaged back to say Ferrari won on strategy! And with the often abandoned ‘Plan A’, I had to convince them I wasn’t joking.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
1st September 2024, 19:20
What a way to make a point about Stroll! Love it.
Nick T.
1st September 2024, 21:00
Yes. This is the first time I’ve seen Stroll so thoroughly owned in a driver comment.
BTW, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that since they’ve reportedly secured Newey, he’s suddenly not looking quite as competitive vs FA. Though I think that only accounted for a small proportion. AM, overall, threw up a stinker in everything from strategy, pit stops, car performance and general awareness. Speaking of which, lost in the ban, is the fact that Magnussen’s drive was yet a second example of how feasible the two stop drive was and in a car famous for bad tire wear (though, it’s 100x better this season just like SF, which I’m sure is no coincidence at all).
someone or something
2nd September 2024, 10:42
By a driver in only his second season if F1, no less. The disrespect for Stroll is palpable.
AlanD
2nd September 2024, 11:19
When you said “second season” I thought you’d made an error and was convinced this was still his rookie season, and still. It shows how much he has improved over the course of one year that last year’s results were barely memorable, and this year he is both pushing and beating Norris. Usually when a driver makes a step up like that, it is because they have changed teams, but this progression within the same team is very impressive.
someone or something
2nd September 2024, 11:39
Yeah, he’s showing a very promising learning curve. And that move on Norris was both extremely aggressive and clinical. Definitely on the shortlist of potential future stars.
Nick T.
2nd September 2024, 14:08
For a second, I thought he was making a crack about Stroll. The whole joke about some oddly give Lance slack as if he’s still a young, developing driver.
Edvaldo
1st September 2024, 19:27
Piastri lost this race when Mclaren, trying to repeat Hungary, delayed his 2nd pit by 5 laps in relation to Norris.
He finished the race 2 seconds behind while slashing more than that by each lap.
So, had they called him in 2 laps sooner, he would win.
As simple as that.
Kribana (@krichelle)
1st September 2024, 19:44
I am sure that their call was to split the strategies at that point but I am guessing when Oscar had that radio of « unsure front is pretty dead » they had to abort the one stop. What I find more costly is Piastri overtaking Norris and making them lose control of the race.
AlexS
1st September 2024, 19:51
Well they had the control of the race. They even had Piastri and Norris were in front of Leclerc after the first pit stop.
AlexS
1st September 2024, 19:49
Piastri was not wining 2 sec per lap on Leclerc ever in his last stint. Only in one lap it approached it.
Edvaldo
1st September 2024, 19:55
Does not change the fact that with 2 fewer laps on the middle stint he would’ve won.
someone or something
2nd September 2024, 10:54
Yes, it does. With the way tyre degradation works, and considering McLaren’s tyre wear issues, a longer final stint would’ve affected Piastri’s average lap times.
Additionally, Piastri’s average lap time advantage over Leclerc was really a lot less than 2 seconds. It was around 1.1 seconds (16 seconds in the 14 laps after his pit stop, or 9 seconds in the 8 laps after overtaking Sainz), so even if we could magically slap that lap time advantage on two more laps of Piastri’s race, he’d still have finished the race just out of striking distance (and with tyres that had even less of a freshness advantage).
There was no easy solution for McLaren’s strategy.
Edvaldo
2nd September 2024, 12:39
Dude, he lost by 2 seconds and his tyres were fine. That’s what matters.
2 more laps would not damage his tyres.
Leclerc was done, it would be as simple as approaching and passing at the first braking zone.
I stand by my point.
someone or something
2nd September 2024, 15:23
I recognise a waste of time when I see one.
Edvaldo
2nd September 2024, 16:04
Norris was taking identical chunks of time from Leclerc until the very end of the race, yet he had tyres 5 laps older than Piastri’s.
Explain me why is that instead of trying to act smart, if you can.
The time charts were posted on this same website. I’ll wait.
Oh, no, you’re not going to do that, obviously.
Nick T.
1st September 2024, 21:02
He and the team lost by both trying to cover Norris and not making the common sense decision to split their strategy. That was likely partly done in fear of Oscar and others thinking they had purposely done it to favor Lando.
Applebook
2nd September 2024, 0:17
It wouldn’t have played out like that. If Charles had a smaller gap, then he would have increased his pace relative to where Oscar was.
Edvaldo
2nd September 2024, 17:30
And his tyres would drop off sooner.
His tyres were dead at the finish the way it was, now imagine him pushing them earlier and harder.
Jere (@jerejj)
1st September 2024, 19:31
To me, Stroll didn’t seem to held him up any more than the other lapped drivers.
Leo B
1st September 2024, 20:16
Bernie the Sky commentator and ex McLaren strategist was absent Fromm the coverage today. She might have provided some interesting and informed viewpoints.
Nick T.
1st September 2024, 21:03
The same goes for Ruth Buscombe on F1TV. If there was any race she would have been great to have, it would have been this week.
MichaelN
1st September 2024, 20:34
So he lost a single second, by his own estimation, and this is how he responds? Stay classy, Oscar.
David (@nvherman)
4th September 2024, 0:31
Trouble is, I think this may be Piastri’s true colours.
Nick T.
1st September 2024, 21:04
It was funny, but yeah, a total sour grapes excuse.
Alan Dove
2nd September 2024, 7:46
Drivers only call it ‘go-karting’ when they leave karting. It’s such a weird phenomena.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
2nd September 2024, 8:08
I think it is a bit excessive by Piastri to complain this much if it literally cost him a second by his own words. It often costs drivers a lot more than this when back markers happen to be in a battle.
I personally really dislike the blue flag rules. In other races, you often do get the drivers as high up as 10th and in the points getting lapped. And the scenario could appear that a team is fighting for their only points in the season which could well be worth several positions in the standings while the leaders if anything are less effected by losing a lot more points.
I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, but I think there should be marked lanes off the racing line where lapped drivers go specifically to be lapped and only at certain parts of the racetrack. I feel this way things will be more fair.
MichaelN
2nd September 2024, 9:16
That’s a great point: Alonso missed 10th and thus a point by just two tenths of second after the time penalty was applied to Magnussen. In cases like this, a driver getting lapped is in a very important race of his own and can’t afford to go out of his way. Drivers in Piastri’s position already get the benefit of DRS; and at some point the car being lapped can’t be expected to do much more.
AlanD
2nd September 2024, 11:39
“I personally really dislike the blue flag rules.”
I was thinking the same when I watched the race yesterday. There was a time when being able to pick your way through the backmarkers was a real skill, and blue flags were used more as a warning of a faster car coming through rahter than an instruction to leap out of the way. Coming up to backmarkers used to be viewed by a chasing car as an opportunity to pass the lead car while it was distracted. I am not in favour of backmarkers deliberately holding up a faster car, but I think the sport is too quick to jump to blue flags and penalties, and in doing so have removed a skill from the sport.
Nick T.
2nd September 2024, 13:18
+1
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
2nd September 2024, 22:30
LeClerc had Piastri covered, and allowed him to close up over the last three laps. Like Lewis, Charles knows that a win by 2 seconds counts the same as a win by 6 seconds, but with less stress on tyres and the car.
David (@nvherman)
4th September 2024, 0:33
@flyinglapp a Prost-like ‘win whilst driving as slowly as possible’ style