Piastri reveals why he opted against a one-stop strategy in Hungarian GP
Although he had much better pace than his team-mate Lando Norris in the closing stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri was unable to overtake his British rival.
McLaren looked utterly dominant across the practice sessions, but a sudden change to the weather conditions meant that they were unexpectedly challenged by several rivals.
In the end, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc got the better of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, but a second and third spot on the grid were still strong starting places for the Woking-based outfit.
At the start, Piastri held on to second place, but Norris fell behind the Mercedes of George Russell and the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso.
With a one-stop strategy for Norris and fading pace for Leclerc, the McLaren pair worked its way up into the lead.
The closing stages of the race saw Piastri close in on his team-mate on his fresher tyres, and the Australian mounted several attacks, Norris held on to secure a one-two for the British outfit.
Asked why he did not opt to a one-stop strategy as his team-mate Lando Norris did, Piastri stated that while it 'wasn't completely off the table", he was unsure about its feasibility.
"We did speak about it a bit before the race, so it wasn't completely off the table. But, in the race, I got asked about it. Very difficult to know from the cockpit what is going to be the best thing to do.
"Like I said, when you're the car behind, your risk-reward ratio is always much different. So, yeah, there's always that. Could we have matched Lando?
"That's, I guess, the question that I don't have the answer to. So, I guess that's the only thing. But we wanted to try and win the race as well, and the best way of trying to beat Lando is by trying to win the race as well.
"That was obviously an intention, but I think we'll definitely analyse if there was something we could have done a bit differently," concluded Piastri.
