Australian burger chain backtracks on Oscar Piastri promo after podium slump

Australian burger chain Grill’d has been forced to change its promotion surrounding McLaren driver Oscar Piastri after he failed to finish on the podium in every race since the Italian Grand Prix.

The promotion promised a free ‘bonus’ burger each time the Australian finished on the podium. But after a drop in performance from the former championship leader left him without a podium finish since early September, the promotion was changed to apply when Piastri races.

The promotion runs through to mid-December, and Piastri still has three race weekends to improve his standing, but another disappointing weekend in Brazil has dropped him even further back from leader Lando Norris. A gap of just one point has now stretched to 24, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is closing in quickly after an immense drive on Sunday.

This is a distinct change from the beginning of the year as Piastri set the pace with multiple wins and regular podiums. But since the summer, his momentum has waned and a crash in Baku ended a long stint of success. He later lost the championship lead to his team-mate during the Mexican Grand Prix.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“From a pace point of view, I think the pace was quite encouraging in the second and third stint,” team principal Andrea Stella said after the Brazilian Grand Prix. “In the first stint Oscar was carrying some damage on the tyre that was locked and he was also kind of thinking that the stint would have been long, but in the second and the third stint I think the performance was good and just talking right now with Oscar, some of the adaptations that we talked about in these low grip conditions, I think he was able to execute them during the race.

“So I think we take away from this event encouraging indications from a performance point of view and race pace point of view, and then I think we head to circuits where the behaviour of the tyres should be more normal now, well in fairness we go to Vegas, I was already thinking about Qatar and Abu Dhabi, we go to Vegas.

“So in Vegas we will see, it could be a regime of its own, like it’s been in the past with heavy amount of graining, so I think it will be a bit of a standalone race, but some good learning across these three races for Oscar and this makes us optimistic for the final three races.”

Photos from Sao Paulo GP – Race