Piastri calling for McLaren to learn lessons from Imola's 'wrong calls'

Oscar Piastri believes McLaren made some wrong decisions during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix that he wants the team to learn from.

Championship-leader Piastri started on pole position but was overtaken by Max Verstappen at Turn 1, and then made an early first pit stop in an attempt to undercut the Red Bull. Verstappen stayed out, as did Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris, and their tire performance improved before two race interruptions allowed extra pit stops and saw Piastri limited to third at the checkered flag.

“Slight disappointment, probably,” Piastri said of his result. “It's never a great day when you start first and finish third, so just not a great day. I think Turn 1 was not ideal. In the end, our stop timing wasn't… I think the race panned out differently to how we expected at the start of the first stint. 

“The timing of the VSC and the safety car, the race was very tough from very early on. Honestly, given people had fresher tires at the end, hanging on to a podium is not a bad result. You’re going to have tough days in the championship, and this is clearly one of them. As long as we learn the lessons, then that’s all I can ask.”

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Verstappen’s first-lap move came despite the Dutchman being a long way back on Piastri’s outside into the first corner, and while Piastri felt he could have braked later himself, he also expected to be able to fight back later in the race.

“I thought I had it pretty under control, and it was a good move from Max," he said. "I’ll learn for next time, clearly. But at that point, I wasn’t overly concerned to not be in the lead, but then our pace just wasn’t as strong as I expected, so that compounded that first corner.

"Just braked too early, and it was a good move by Max as well. Disappointing, obviously, but I think we made a few wrong calls after that. Not our best Sunday. Definitely a lot of things to look at and review from that one, but well done to Max and Red Bull. It was a good move, but also they had pace today. We'll look back at that one and see what we can do a bit better.”

Piastri was running second after the final safety car restart but was overtaken by teammate Norris – who made an extra pit stop – and he says he didn’t want to make life easy for his closest title challenger at this stage of the season.

“It was tricky," he said. "I tried my best to hang on, but just didn’t have the grip. I tried my best and it was inevitable. I think it was inevitable that he was going to get past, but I wasn’t going to give up without a fight.”