Piastri reveals why he pitted four laps later than Norris at the Red Bull Ring
Reflecting on his battles with his team-mate Lando Norris at last Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri was left to rue his strategy that saw him pit four laps later than the Briton.
Having secured pole position for last Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix in dominant fashion, Lando Norris got a great start to maintain his lead. His team-mate Oscar Piastri also got off from the line well, and managed to pick off Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc through Turn 1.
After the start, it was a two-horse race to the flag. Piastri was within DRS range of Norris for the entire first stint, even overtaking for the lead, but immediately lost out as Norris regained his place. McLaren then elected to pit Norris for fresh tyres, leaving Piastri out on old tyres for a few laps.
Norris got the undercut advantage and wound up with a six-second lead through the second stint. They pitted one lap apart for the final stint, and while Piastri managed to get withing two seconds of his team-mate, the time ran out for him to get even closer.
Reflecting on his battles with Norris, Piastri said: "I mean, again, there have been a few battles in the past, not just last week, but last year and the year before. So, I think we both knew what to expect.
"It was a tough battle. It was close at some points, probably pushing the limits a bit much from my side once or twice. But we're fighting for race wins in Formula 1.
"It's going to be pretty tough work and pretty hard. I thought it was an entertaining race. After the first stop, maybe we didn't do the right thing giving Lando some breathing room, but the first 20 laps were pretty intense. So, it was a good battle."
Asked why he pitted four laps later during the first round of pit stops, Piastri stated: "I knew that I was always going to be pitting second in that scenario. For me, it felt like if I couldn't stay within DRS, then getting back inside one second was going to be very, very tough.
"So, I kind of wanted to go a bit different and give myself some fresher tyres and hopefully be able to use them at the end of the stint. It didn't really pan out that way, unfortunately, but that was the thinking at least.
"We'll go back and look and see whether that was the right thing to do. In the moment, I was always going to lose some amount of time by pitting a lap later, so I kind of went, why not try something a bit different."
Signing off with a word for his expectations for this weekend's British Grand Prix, Piastri stated: "Canada, we kind of thought we'd be good there, and we weren't. Here, we expected to be good, but probably not as good as we have been.
"I think we should be confident that we'll be decent, I think that's fair to say. But how quick we are, we'll find out next week," concluded Piastri.
