Piastri concedes there were ‘valid reasons’ for McLaren team orders in Monza

Oscar Piastri lost out on a chance to extend his championship lead at the Italian Grand Prix as he followed late team orders to allow Lando Norris to retain second place.

The Australian went into the weekend with a 34-point advantage over his papaya teammate, but immediately found himself on the back foot as he struggled to break into the top spot throughout practice.

Qualifying then saw him take third place behind Norris, which is where he remained for the majority of the Italian Grand Prix as he focused on managing his tyres around the high-speed circuit.

However, an agonisingly slow pitstop for the Briton handed Piastri an unexpected P2 on track after he had changed onto fresh tyres first – this didn’t last for long as he was ordered to hand the position back, prompting him to remark: “Is a slow pitstop part of racing?”.

Asked after the race to reflect on the decision, he said: “There were clearly valid reasons for swapping back. Lando qualified ahead and was ahead for the whole race, so I get that. There’s just some things we need to discuss.”

After enduring a long stint on medium tyres, the team asked Norris whether he would prefer to pit before or after his team mate. He agreed to go second as long as there was no threat of the Australian undercutting him, which is exactly what happened when an error led to a 5.9s stop when Norris swapped for soft tyres.

Piastri reflected on the strategy choice, concluding: “We went so long that the soft seemed like a good tyre to put on, and we were just staying out for Safety Cars if we got any, but eventually Max got back into our pit window so there wasn’t any point staying out much longer. A little 'inchident' at the end!”

His lead has now been cut to 31 points over Norris with nine rounds of the season remaining, and the tough weekend in Monza has given him plenty of points to focus on in his ongoing mission to claim his first title.

“I think as a team we just didn’t have amazing pace today,” he summarised. “I think the first part of the race, we were struggling with balance quite a bit and then towards the end of the mediums stint, things actually came good.

“I was happy and the pace was really strong, so yeah, some good things to learn there. Maybe not the best opening lap or two either, which didn’t really help things, but nothing too much to complain about.”