Oscar Piastri may yet prove to be the steal of the century for McLaren. Two years ago the young Australian was languishing in Alpine’s junior academy with seemingly little hope of promotion until Sebastian Vettel dropped his bombshell retirement announcement and Fernando Alonso jumped at the opportunity to leave the French F1 outfit replacing the four times world champion at Aston Martin.
Of course Alpine had already missed the boat in promoting their academy driver given Piastri had signed a covert contract to join McLaren and the short legal battle which ensued ended with the French squad having egg on their collective face. Oscar has proven to be quite the find for McLaren scoring around half the points of Lando Norris his team mate during his first F1 season in 2023, a reasonable return for a rookie.
Coming into the USGP, the young Australian was the driver who had scored the most points this year since the British Grand Prix back in July and was key to McLaren’s push for their first constructors’ title since 1998. And while Oscar failed to deliver during the Sprint sessions, he returned to form in the Grand Prix coming home in fifth place, which but for a team order could have been fourth.
Norris SHOCKING start
The start of the Grand Prix was devastating for Lando Norris, who entered turn one in the lead, but late braking from Verstappen saw Lando pushed wide allowing the Ferrari’s to slip by with ease. This was the first of a number of controversial decisions taken by the stewards during the course of the 56 lap race.
Verstappen had clearly entered turn one on too hot of a trajectory and while he claimed the apex of the corner, his RB20 was not under control as Max scrabbled to remain within the track limits.
At the first round of pit stops, Carlos Sainz jumped Verstappen to run second behind team mate Charles Leclerc. This left Norris behind Verstappen again which is how it would stay for much of the remainder of the race.
As the drivers entered the closing stages, Norris with better than expected tyre degradation mounted a challenge on Verstappen. Then on lap 52 Norris was harrying the world champion turn after turn and selected an outside manoeuvre coming into turn 15.
Surprising speed trap times in COTA
Stewards rule against Norris
Verstappen saw him coming and rolled his RB20 into the corner claiming the apex. This allowed the Red Bull driver to run as wide as he wished forcing Norris completely off the track. The McLaren driver decided to keep his foot in and complete the move outside track limits something which saw him punished by the race stewards with a five second penalty.
The stewards were in fact obliged from their guidance to award Norris with a ten second penalty but their post race notification explained:
“Car 4 [Norris] was overtaking Car 1 [Verstappen] on the outside, but was not level with Car 1 at the apex,” said the stewards. “Therefore under the Driving Standards Guidelines, Car 4 had lost the ‘right’ to the corner.
“Accordingly as Car 4 left the track and returned in front of Car 1, it is deemed to be a case of leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage.”
Regulation on ‘the right to the corner’ needs amending
Norris pressed on hoping he could make a five second gap to Verstappen over the remaining four laps. At the chequered flag the McLaren driver had made up only 4.1 seconds and was instantly relegated to fourth place.
The stewarding decision caused uproar in the paddock and on social media given it look for all the world like Verstappen had pushed Norris off the circuit. As the technical debate ensued, it became obvious the current ruling on which driver owns the right to the corner may be to blame.
Verstappen rightly claimed the apex of the corner but did so braking too late which meant his RB20 was out of control. The inevitable followed which saw Max leave the circuit and de facto take Lando Norris with him.
Despite the derision received by the stewards, they issued a declaration which demonstrated they had battled to treat Lando with as much lenience as possible reducing his penalty by five seconds.
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Stewards lenient towards Norris
“A five-second penalty is imposed instead of the 10-second penalty recommended in the guidelines because having committed to the overtaking move on the outside the driver of Car 4 had little alternative other than to leave the track because of the proximity of Car 1 which had also left the track,” read the stewards statement.
However, there was a storyline which didn’t make the post show race reviews given the furore over the handling of Lando Norris overtake.
On Lap 46 Oscar Piastri was nine seconds behind his team mate on the road but as Norris and versgtapen battled it out, the young Aussie saw his chance to close the gap. As the infamous lap 52 began, Piastri was within 3.5 seconds of his team mate and ready to pounce.
Norris was to hear his fate from the stewards relatively quickly, but not quickly enough for him to gain the fiver seconds required to finish ahead of Max. With Piastri closing in on Verstappen an un-broadcast message was sent from the engineer of car 81. “Lando has been given a five-second penalty. Can you back off by one second?” Piastri was told.
Sergio Perez F1 exit announcement
McLaren issue first team order
Dutifully Oscar went from a lap time of 1:38.1 to one substantially slower in a 1:40.6, then normal service resumed as Piastri next time around was in the 1:37’s.
This delivered McLaren’s intention in the classified results. Norris was less than a second behind Verstappen and just 1.5 seconds ahead of his team mate.
The debate has raged over McLaren’s soft underbelly since the team refused to allow him to retain the lead in the Hungarian Grand Prix. By moving over for Piastri this cost Norris 7 points and another three were lost in Monza when McLaren failed to switch Piastri (P2) for Norris (P3), honours which are inconsequential.
Whilst a relatively easy call to make, McLaren have now joined the world of bog boy F1 racing proving they can take a decision which may favour one driver over the other.
To Oscar it was no big deal, he started fifth and fifth was where he finished. It would have been churlish to take advantage of his team mates efforts to race Verstappen and the points difference is of little consequence.
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Mercedes mostly had a weekend to forget at the USGP despite having topped the time sheets in Friday practice and George Russell coming within a whisker of Sprint pole. During the shortened version of the Grand Prix, Russell fell through the order on fading tyres while Hamilton improved on his P7 start to finish the Sprint in 6th behind his team mate.
Grand Prix qualifying was to go even worse for Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton failed to make it out of Q1. Russell was sixth going into the final runs in Q3 when he inexplicably sent his W15 into the crash barrier at turn 19. The session was red flagged with barely minutes to go but the rebuild of George’s car meant his engineers worked through the night in breach of the curfew which saw Russell penalised and starting the GP from the pit lane.
Having never started outside the top five at COTA, Hamilton had moved up to start seventeenth following other penalties issued. But just one lap into the race he suffered a similar fate to his team mate the day previously, at the same corner too and Lewis’ race came to a swift end… READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
