Oscar Piastri's willingness to give up second place at Monza kept McLaren happy, but will he regret lacking the ruthlessness that defines modern Formula 1 champions?
Oscar Piastri emerged from the Italian Grand Prix with a half-smile on his face and third place in his pocket, but there was something faintly unsatisfying about how the McLaren driver ended his afternoon.
The Australian was once again the perfect team player, obeying McLaren’s orders to let teammate Lando Norris ahead to make up for the mistake made by the team itself during the British driver’s pitstop.
The decision generated plenty of reaction, including from Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, a man with plenty of experience in dealing with team orders controversies.
“You set a precedent that is very difficult to undo,” Wolff said of McLaren’s call at Monza. “What if the team does another mistake and it’s not a pitstop? Do you switch them around?”
But even outsiders appeared more angered by the decision than Piastri himself – and that might raise the question of whether he has the aggression and single-mindedness that’s been the hallmark of so many modern champions.
As Wolff pointed out, it is also unfair that a driver pays for a mistake made by his team, as was the case for Norris, who lost four seconds and second place to Piastri after a problem fitting his left front wheel.
As Norris was ahead before the pitstops, McLaren felt it was only right to make Piastri pay for the error during the pitstop, even though the Australian had also done nothing wrong.
Piastri was not too happy with McLaren’s decision, and he made it clear on the radio.
Hungary 2024 was cited by McLaren to explain Monza’s decision
Grand Prix Photo
“We said that a slow pitstop was part of racing. So I don’t really get what’s changed here,” the championship leader said, responding to his race engineer’s request, which was made on the basis that the situation was “a bit like Hungary last year”.
It wasn’t, of course.
In the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren had decided that Norris would pit first and undercut race leader Piastri in order to protect the Briton from Hamilton’s pressure.
“Okay, Oscar, Lando has pitted to make sure he covers Hamilton. We’ll manage that situation,” Piastri was told on the radio by his engineer during last year’s race.
The undercut allowed Norris to take the lead, and he was later asked to “re-establish the order at your convenience”. That was on lap 49 of the race.
After several radio exchanges, some of which went unanswered, Norris finally gave up the lead to Piastri with two laps to go, on lap 68.
“The way to win the championship is not by yourself. You are going to need Oscar and you are going to need the team,” was the final radio message Norris got before he relinquished the lead.
The difference between Hungary and Monza is that, in the former, McLaren enabled the undercut fully aware that it was powerful enough for Norris to overtake Piastri, and the team knew that the order would be re-established later on.
From Piastri’s comments, the suggestion was that McLaren had discussed this situation and other similar ones, and had agreed that slow pitstops were not part of the deal.
Piastri didn’t look too happy on the podium
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It’s hard to imagine that Norris’s reluctance to give up the lead in Hungary last year didn’t play a role in the Monza decision.
Would McLaren have asked Piastri to let Norris through had the Briton not made a point about his unhappiness in Hungary and had quickly allowed his teammate to overtake?
McLaren has to be commended for trying absolutely everything in its power to make the championship fight as fair as possible, but isn’t a driver who makes it easier for its bosses to impose team orders more likely to be the subject of those team orders?
Piastri, who has been an almost perfect team player, felt the situation wasn’t fair, but still complied without resistance.
“It’s something that we’ll discuss. We have discussed it before,” said Piastri after the race. “I think today was a fair request. Lando qualified ahead, was ahead the whole race, and lost that spot through no fault of his own.
“I said what I had to say on the radio. And once I got the second request, then I’m not going to go against the team.
“I think there’s a lot of people to protect and a culture to protect outside of just Lando and I. Ultimately that’s a very important thing going forward.”
Piastri is happy to play the team game for now
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On the one hand, Piastri’s approach is also commendable, particularly in a time where drivers often show no respect towards their race engineers with their radio messages, embarrassing them in front of the millions of people watching.
Piastri has always been a calm voice amid that chaos, in the process putting his team’s interests first.
His Monza behaviour was a mark of Piastri’s professionalism.
He followed the team’s instructions, avoided intra-squad drama, and ensured McLaren banked a strong haul of points. No tantrums, no headlines, no damage to his carefully managed reputation as the calm, intelligent racer.
In a perfect world, Piastri would be rewarded for his approach, but it remains to be seen whether his restraint will eventually hold him back.
From McLaren's controversial team orders to Red Bull's Monza revival and Tsunoda's ongoing struggles, the 2025 Italian GP left plenty of talking points off the track
By
Pablo Elizalde
Formula 1’s greatest champions are rarely remembered for their willingness to play the dutiful number two, even when, like in Piastri’s case at Monza, it is a one-off.
Sometimes that ruthlessness spilt over into controversy, but it also cemented their status as drivers who would never settle for less than the maximum.
Piastri, still in just his third season, could be walking a fine line.
By obeying McLaren’s order, he kept the peace, but he also sent the message that he will move aside even when the circumstances don’t fully justify doing so.
So the question lingers: is Piastri right to prioritise harmony and patience, or is it time he sharpened his elbows? The outcome of his battle with Norris might give him the answer later this year.
