Oscar Piastri’s response to a “wrong” tyres decision to start the Bahrain Grand Prix saw him overrule team instructions, as a sixth-placed finish sealed his 2026 fate.
Piastri’s sixth-placed finish – after starting from P6 – in Kuala Lumpur mathematically ended his chances of competing for the Drivers’ Championship, which has been all but won by Kimi Antonelli after Mercedes teammate George Russell’s DNF left him 84 points adrift in the standings.
It could have been worse had the Australian not insisted on a tyre change just two laps in, with McLaren having started on slicks that proved ill-equipped to deal with the wet conditions on a badly rain-affected track.
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Piastri had argued with his team in the formation lap, before insisting “I need to box – too wet”.
While it dropped him down to P10 in the early stages, the change to intermediates proved a wise move, rising to sixth by race’s end.
“It was hard to know what the right decision was to make,” Piastri said post-race.
“I thought it looked wet, but we felt that if we could stay on the track, we’d have a good chance of making progress.
“But as soon as I took turn 1 coming out of the pit lane, I realised we’d made the wrong decision.”
McLaren engineer Tom Stallard praised Piastri on the team’s radio for the decision afterwards.
“Well done,” he said.
However, the move didn’t mask another disappointing weekend for McLaren, whose hold on third in the constructors’ standings slipped to 18 points with Red Bull closing to 18 points off the back of Max Verstappen’s stunning win.
When asked about the team’s issues, Piastri was blunt.
“We didn’t quite make the right calls and ultimately we weren’t quick enough,” he said.
“I think us and Ferrari seem a little bit in a similar ballpark. But that ballpark is not fighting for race wins.
“So we need to improve. We know that. And we’ll try our best to make sure we try and improve.”
Team principal Andrea Stella agreed, saying the team was “fourth in terms of performance” in Malaysia.
“Even if we’d got every decision spot on, I don’t think we could have achieved any higher than Oscar’s sixth place,” he said.
Piastri fared better than teammate Lando Norris, whose bizarre safety car blunder saw him end up in the gravel after nearly taking out the Australian.
The Briton only received a reprimand for the incident after being summoned by stewards for driving erratically under safety car conditions.
Speaking post-race after finishing ninth, Norris said low visibility meant he simply didn’t see Russell pulling to the side of the track to retire.
“I couldn’t see from the angle and, from where I was, how much everyone had stopped because of George on the inside,” he said.
“So by the time I kind of looked at George and looked back, I could see them. But it’s hard when you’re directly behind to see if they’re going 100, 200, or 10, and they were going 10, so I just got completely caught out.
“I guess it’s my fault at the end of the day, so I was just unlucky with it.
“Everyone just checked up so much and I just got screwed over by it, that’s all.”
The incident comes just a week after Norris’ tetchy response to rival Franco Colapinto causing his crash-out in Azerbaijan, where the Alpine driver collided with teammate Pierre Gasly on Turn 1, leading to all three crashing out.
“If you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban,” Norris said.
“It is just careless … it’s not driving that deserves to be in Formula 1.”
The unfortunate timing of Norris’ Malaysian near-miss wasn’t lost on Polish F1 commentators.