Outrage as McLaren secret slips out over Oscar Piastri penalty
Aussie Oscar Piastri has been left feeling aggrieved after a wild British Grand Prix where a 10-second penalty cost him a likely race win.
As McLaren teammate Lando Norris charged to win his home race at Silverstone, Piastri was desperately searching for a solution that would have stopped his world championship lead from being slashed to just eight points.
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The 24-year-old was feeling hard done by after being handed a penalty for an unsafe race re-start on Lap 22 where his sudden braking before a safety car was called into the pits at late notice resulted in Max Verstappen needing to take evasive action.
The penalty, announce after a quick FIA review, created a nightmare situation for the McLaren garage.
All it was going to take was another safety to force the team to make its biggest call of the year.
With both drivers in a pit stop window in the middle laps of the race, another safety car in the wet and wild conditions would have forced team bosses to make a call between their two drivers.
Watch the moment Oscar Piastri was penalised for in the video above
The prospect of forcing Norris to double stack while his teammate served a 10 second penalty in the pits would have left local fans ready to tear the place apart.
The only alternative would have been to order Piastri to give the race lead to his teammate and be double stacked in the pits.
The team was fortuitous to avoid the nightmare scenario, but team principal Andre Stella explained after the race it was Piastri who would have been given priority.
'In reality, the way we manage the situation, given the penalty, was to allow Oscar, despite the penalty, in case of a safety car, to retain the lead, because if there was a safety car, both guys would have pitted,' he said after Norris' race win, per The Race.
'Oscar would have paid the penalty. Lando could have waited. And the two McLarens would have gone out in the same order as they came in.
'But at the point in which we needed to have the transition of the dry tyres, then the penalty was paid, and at that stage we thought that we should just retain the natural order gained through the penalty.'
Stella's comments have caused outrage among Norris' legion of fans.
A complaint made by one Norris supporter, where they said Stella's comments left them 'lost for words', has gone viral on X.
There were many other social media users that were furious when hearing how Piastri would have been given the advantage.
One posted: 'I had a feeling that in case of a safety car and penalty they will still pit Oscar first and Lando will be screwed over massively.
'This is not fair racing. This is punishing a driver for another driver's mistake which is absolutely insane.'
One wrote: 'Absolutely disgusting from the team, but I'm not surprised.
'Lando will have to fight really hard for every win but I'm 100 per cent confident he can make it happen.'
Stella's comments will only add to rumours that have previously suggested McLaren made a conscious call to prioritise Piastri's title tilt when Max Verstappen was still seen as a serious threat.
However, McLaren also showed a clear sign they do not have a dog in the fight as Piastri and Norris slug it out for the title when Piastri's request for Norris to let him pass late in the race was rejected.
It was a desperate request from a driver who hoped his team disagreed with FIA stewards as much as he did about the penalty handed down earlier.
Piastri asked the team on radio late in the race: 'I don't think the penalty before was very fair. I know it's a big question, but if you don't think it was fair either, I think we should swap back and race'.
His race engineer, Tom Stallard, didn't take long to inform Piastri that his wish would not be granted.
Despite his complaints, Piastri admitted the team's decision was 'fair'.
'I thought I would ask the question,' Piastri said.
'I knew what the answer was going to be before I asked, but I just wanted a small glimmer of hope that maybe I could get it back. But no, I knew it wasn't going to happen.'
Piastri was much more angry about the penalty itself.
'I don't really understand it,' he said later.
'I need to look back and see it again because I don't think I did anything different or anything wrong,' he said.
'I mean I did what I did at the first restart and, apparently, one needed a penalty and other didn't.
'I thought the penalty... was pretty bad.'
Verstappen's reaction in the moment on Red Bull team radio was telling. 'Woah, mate,' Verstappen said. 'He just suddenly again slows down!'
But the Red Bull driver was still surprised by the penalty.
'It caught me out on cold tyres,' Verstappen explained. 'I only found out after the race [that Piastri was penalised]. It has happened to me a few times, this kind of scenario. I find it strange that Oscar is the first to receive 10 seconds for it.'
It was McLaren's first home triumph at Silverstone since seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton won in 2008. For Norris, it was a first home win, his fourth win of the year and the eighth of his career.
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