Oscar Piastri to be asked how he wants to lose championship after Aussie's Hungarian GP outburst

News.com.au

2 days ago

McLaren is planning to speak to Oscar Piastri about what will happen if his teammate, Lando Norris, is to win the 2025 driver's championship as tensions simmer at the F1 juggernaut.
Piastri leads Norris by nine points at the championship break, in what has quickly become a two-horse race between the McLaren duo, who have won 11 of the 14 grands prix so far.
However, after the Aussie was dudded by team tactics at the Hungarian Grand Prix at the start of this month, it became crystal clear that the team have a problem on their hands.
The Aussie was the victim of his McLaren team's strategy gamble to put teammate Lando Norris on an ambitious one-stop strategy after he dropped positions on the opening lap, with tensions finally bubbling over.
McLaren has done a brilliant job in keeping the relationship between Piastri and Norris amicable as they fight for the world championship — but Piastri's radio message to his team during the Hungary GP shows it is just a matter of time before the gloves come off.
As Piastri was preparing for his final stop, he was asked by race engineer Tom Stallard if he intended to extinguish any glimmer of hope Leclerc had of winning the race, or was instead focussed on beating his teammate.
As recorded by the @radiomessages profile on X, Piastri was asked: 'Leclerc is going to be four or five seconds ahead of our pit window. We suggest to box this lap'.
Piastri's blunt response was incredibly telling: 'I don't really care about Leclerc. I just want the best chance to try and beat Lando.
In the end, he didn't manage to reel in his teammate, and many felt the Aussie was dudded by the tactics, which seemed to favour the Englishman from the outset on a difficult track to overtake.
And with McLaren sensing Piastri is growing frustrated, the team is set to pull each of their star drivers aside ahead of the season restarting at the Dutch Grand Prix on August 31.
Speaking to The Race, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said the team will work out a plan on how to handle the losing driver, when the championship is ultimately decided.
'We'll just sit down and actually have a conversation and go 'Right, one of you is going to win, it's going to be the best day of your life – one of you is going to lose, how do you want us to handle that? You want us to jump up and down and celebrate this guy [who] won?' he said.
'We're fully aware and sensitive to how you celebrate that situation. And I think we'll just sit down with the drivers and come to an agreement: 'One of you is not going to be the champion. How do you want us to act?'
'That's the way we think. It comes back to thinking about our people.'
In 2025, Piastri has six wins to Norris's five; they are level on four poles, and equal on podiums too, with 12 apiece.
And McLaren insists they will give both drivers an equal opportunity to take their first title and will give them freedom to race wheel-to-wheel and employ different strategies.
'It's going to come down to execution,' said Brown, speaking about which man will come out on top.
'It's clear, from a pace point of view, there's nothing in it.
'So, it's going to come down to consistency of execution – or it could come down to luck of the draw: weather, safety car, or one guy gets wiped out by someone else on the track.'