Oscar Piastri found himself in team orders situation in F1 Australian GP which was fairly normal for Andrea Stella, but he lost out more due to his off.
It wasn’t the best of starts for McLaren’s Piastri in F1 Australian GP where he lost out to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on Lap 1. He got back the position later on but he lost time on Lando Norris in the process. He did catch up on him and got onto his tail by the time they caught the backmarkers.
But the time he got close, McLaren asked him to hold position due to the backmarkers situation and also rain. It baffled Piastri but agreed to do it. By the time they allowed him to race again, the Australian lost momentum and dropped out of DRS from Norris, with no chance to get back.
His race was undone when he went off along with Norris. While the Brit could pit straightaway, Piastri was beached in the grass and had to reverse the car to pit. He dropped to the back of the pack and lost time in clearing cars at the go. Once he did, he managed to put himself in 10th.
He then had to put in a bold move on Lewis Hamilton to snatch ninth. It was still some points but not enough when he was in for second place if not the race win. Post-race, Piastri was certainly not too happy with how everything panned out. He understood some of the call, but wanted to know more.
He admitted that the call did hurt his chances eventually. But overall, he thinks barring for that one mistake, he was on pace – something which Stella agreed to as well. The Italian expanded on why McLaren took the call to disallow the two drivers from fighting against each other. He knows Piastri has the pace and that he will get many chances considering the car McLaren has built.
Race –
Piastri: “The start was not amazing. I just got pinched on the inside a little bit and then got overtaken. But I think the pace was really strong until we pitted for slicks. Max obviously locked up a little bit and went wide, and I was able to show the pace I had. But it’s just a shame that all of that didn’t lead to the result we wanted today. I knew that we had strong pace, I knew that I had strong pace. Even after the final re-start, it was frustrating, Ocon went wide nearly lost the car in the last corner, so I went past by just driving normally, I had to give the position back, so I lost 3-4 seconds for doing that. Given that I had to unlap myself, I had some pretty good temperature in the tyres and was just able to capitalise on that, the car’s pace and my own confidence I think, so I’m glad that we at least got back up the points, but it should have been a lot more.”
Stella: “It’s definitely mixed feelings, because until the moment where both drivers hit this sudden rain in the last sector, Oscar and Lando were driving brilliantly, both. And effectively Oscar just paid a bigger price than Lando with the going off track and then not being able to come out of the grass. But I think Oscar today was deserving to be in contention for the victory until the last moment and he drove exceptionally well and when I use the verb driving that’s not only driving the car around the track but it’s also the kind of assessment of the conditions of the decisions that we should have taken, it was very lucid, very calm.
“He’s starting year 3 in F1, he looks like one of the most expert drivers that I’ve worked with. So, extremely impressed by Oscar today, just a little bit unlucky. I am extremely how the weekend, first front row of the season, I already stressed how much the driver supported each other through the weekend by learning from each other and I think some of the laptimes we saw and the gaps we saw in qualifying are the derivation of this interaction between the two drivers. I think if the car keeps performing at this level of competitiveness, the satisfaction of Oscar is not far.”
Incident –
Piastri: “I tried to push a bit too much, I guess. In those conditions, it’s very difficult to judge just how slippery it’s going to be. I think from one lap to the next, it had really changed a lot, and I could see Lando going off in front of me, but I was also already in the corner, basically, so there wasn’t much I could do to slow myself down at that point. And then once you’re in the gravel, obviously to get stuck in the grass like that was pretty unbelievable, sat in the car, but I’ve only got myself to blame for being there, so it’s a shame. I was just trying to stay in the race, tried to go forward but couldn’t, it was good thing that in off-season I spent time trying to learn how to reverse a tractor in [Jeremy] Clarkson’s farm, it came handy. I was just trying to get myself back in the race.”
Team orders –
Piastri: “We were holding position before that. I think by the time we were free to race, it kind of killed my front left a little bit getting to the back of Lando. By that point, there wasn’t much I could do. So, yeah, by that point I had nothing left to do, I think that was probably a pretty minor moment in the race. I think today’s race and the circumstances were pretty extreme. We were approaching backmarkers, one dry line, not knowing if there’s going to be rain to come. So I’ll speak to the team and try and understand better what the thing was. But I think it’s always clear that those kind of calls can come in either direction.”
Stella: “During the race at some stage we had to go relatively soon to some back markers, while the cars were close together and the conditions on track were still a little tricky with wet tyres or intermediate tyres that were running down a bit in terms of their rubber on. At the same time, we were receiving some updates on the weather forecast. So we had the going through the back markers and the update on the weather forecast that led us to close for a short period of time the internal racing between our two drivers until we had clarity as to the weather prediction, what this meant for how we should have used the tyres, and then until we had closed the matter of overtaking the back markers. So once this was completed and the weather was assessed, then we reopened the racing. The drivers were aware when we gave the team order to hold positions and then they were aware when we told them to be free to race.
“I’m left to review the communications with the drivers, but for the drivers, we didn’t even know ourselves how long this period would have been until the weather forecast had become a little clearer. We just try to keep this period as short as possible. And the drivers know that this is the case, so we don’t want to make it unnecessarily long. I think in terms of retaining a consistent pace at that stage of the races, it was difficult, which is also one of the reasons why we wanted to pause the internal competition for a few laps, because both drivers were making little mistakes here and there. Because I think as soon as you were putting the tyres on a slightly more wet portion, then you may have a sudden oversteer, you may have a little lock-up because the front-left was slightly worn. So I don’t know exactly what kind of issues he might have had in terms of pace in this phase of the race, but I suspect that it might have to do with these little issues that pushing at that level in those conditions, I’ve seen regularly on either of the drivers.”
Feeling –
Piastri: “I think for essentially 56 laps of today’s race, I was very proud of the job I did, the pace was really strong, and obviously disappointed with the mistake I made, but I think that doesn’t take away completely from how strong the whole weekend’s been, for not just the team, but for myself, I feel like I’ve done a good job all weekend, so I think it would be pessimistic of me to just write off the whole weekend because of one mistake. Clearly it will hurt for a period of time, but I’m still happy with the job I did, apart from that one lap. Those were incredibly tough conditions, and we saw a lot of people struggling today. Not that that means I should struggle. But, I think there’s still plenty of positives to take [from the weekend].”
Spoken to Piastri:
Stella: “I told him he will have many satisfactions this year because he is fast and the car seems to be fast, today was just an unlucky race and the good thing with Oscar is you don’t have to do much of the psychological exercises of convincing him not to get too upset with himself or with the situation because he is one of the mentally strongest drivers that I’ve ever met. So, I’m sure in China he will be back and very soon he will have important results.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-australian-grand-prix-verstappen-jumps-piastri-as-doohan-crashes-out-a-wet-race-start-in-melbourne.1826723506326238911
Here’s moment for McLaren drivers: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-australian-grand-prix-piastris-chances-of-home-win-slip-away-as-more-rain-hits-albert-park.1826731533741845302
Here’s move from Oscar Piastri: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-australian-grand-prix-piastri-powers-past-hamilton-to-snatch-p9-with-daring-move.1826731444665200011
Here’s Red Bull, McLaren pair on Australian GP
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out