Oscar Piastri’s first grand prix victory in his second season of F1 wasn’t quite without fault. Just short of half-distance he ran wide out of Turn 11 after a mid-corner snap on hard tyres which were past their best. It lost him more than half of the 4.5sec margin he’d built up over team-mate Lando Norris after slicing down his inside into Turn 1 seconds after the lights went out.
That small error put in place the big controversy of the race as McLaren played safe in protecting Norris from a very distant undercut threat from Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes up to the second stops. It brought Norris in first to head off that threat and left Piastri out two laps longer to reduce the tyre advantage the late-stopping Max Verstappen would have in the last stint. But neither were serious threats. It was just McLaren playing safe. But the strong undercut effect around a track with such high tyre degradation put Norris into the lead. This had been expected and Piastri was assured the positions would be reversed again.
But Norris was lapping faster than Piastri on their final set of tyres. Far from giving the place back, he was pulling away and looking like he had every intention of capitalising on the artificial way he’d been gifted the lead. A very tense radio conversation between Norris and the team ensued before Lando eventually acceded to the request and backed off to allow Piastri past with three laps to go.
