Cruel twist in big Piastri recovery as F1 fury erupts over final lap drama<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIn qualifying I feel like I did a reasonable job and the car felt reasonable as well,\u201d he said on Saturday night, per Autosport. \u201cSo the lack of lap time is a bit of a mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t sound like a driver in a misconfigured car.<\/p>\n
Moreover, while a car can be set-up to be more performant in qualifying or the race \u2014 and set-up cannot be changed after qualifying \u2014 you can\u2019t on the one hand say Piastri qualified badly because he\u2019s being nobbled by his team and then on the other say he drove a great race despite being nobbled by his team.<\/p>\n
Ambiguously waving at suspicions over \u2018different set-ups\u2019 as a smoking gun makes no sense.<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: Oscar Piastri has lost the title lead for the first time in 15 rounds after a recovery drive from seventh to fifth wasn\u2019t enough to counter a dominant victory by teammate Lando Norris. Where has it gone wrong for the Aussie, and can he fight back from here?<\/p>\n
BUT WASN\u2019T PIASTRI\u2019S CAR BROKEN?<\/p>\n
Sometimes when a driver encounters a mysteriously poor run of form and feels like they\u2019re running out of answers, they\u2019ll blame a problem with the chassis \u2014 the monocoque around which the entire car is built.<\/p>\n
Piastri has not reached for this psychological crutch yet, however, and McLaren sees no reason for him to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery evidence, every piece of data, every indirect measurement of information we have tells us that there is no problem with the car, and we have no reason to suspect that that\u2019s the case,\u201d McLaren boss Andrea Stella said, per The Race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would change other components than the chassis, like the floor, the front wing, but in reality, there\u2019s a rotation of parts, so it\u2019s not like there\u2019s always the same parts on the cars. So we have reasons to be reassured that there\u2019s no problem with the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri last had a chassis changed in Azerbaijan after crashing out of qualifying. The chassis he crashed was reportedly beyond repair.<\/p>\n
The chassis he switched to was the tub he used in the opening eight grands prix, four of which he won.<\/p>\n
Of course the chassis has taken on damage since Azerbaijan \u2014 most notably in Austin, where it was involved in a significant first-turn smash.<\/p>\n
The team undertook a detailed inspection afterwards and found no reason for concern.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth pointing out that when qualifying for the grand prix, which took place after the crash, he was closer to Norris in lap time than he had been when qualifying for the sprint the day before, which would seem to validate the theory that the chassis isn\u2019t a problem.<\/p>\n
‘Obvious’ Oscar admits to driving change | 02:42<\/p>\n
I HEARD McLAREN IS UPGRADING THE CAR TO SUIT NORRIS BETTER.<\/p>\n
The ground-effect era has become notorious for capricious cars, with even relatively minor upgrades throwing machines way out of their operating windows and making them borderline undrivable.<\/p>\n
Just ask Sergio P\u00e9rez, who could extract less and less pace from his Red Bull Racing car last year as it was upgraded into a narrower corner through the season to the point that even Max Verstappen couldn\u2019t drive it.<\/p>\n
But that isn\u2019t the case here.<\/p>\n
McLaren has had the development tap switched off for months now. It hasn\u2019t brought an upgrade to the car since the Italian Grand Prix in September, and most of those new parts were specific to the Monza circuit.<\/p>\n
The car\u2019s last substantive upgrade was at the British Grand Prix, where it received a reworked floor, the most important aerodynamic part.<\/p>\n
Piastri was by far the fastest driver at the British Grand Prix and seemed sure to win it before a safety car infringement dropped him to second behind Norris.<\/p>\n
The new front suspension brought to the Canadian Grand Prix has been pointed to as a potential smoking gun because only Norris is using it. It was offered to Piastri, but he turned it down, feeling that its negatives outweighed its positives.<\/p>\n
The suspension tweak wasn\u2019t an upgrade per se; it was designed to generate more front-end feeling that both Norris and Piastri have said is lacking from the 2025 car. Piastri, however, is much less bothered by it than Norris.<\/p>\n
Piastri has won two more races since Canada and would\u2019ve won at least another two but for circumstance, so we can discount that as being a fundamental problem.<\/p>\n
Chaotic Mexico GP race recep | 09:18<\/p>\n
BUT EVERYONE KNOWS McLAREN WANTS NORRIS TO WIN THE TITLE, RIGHT?<\/p>\n
For some, the coincidence of Piastri\u2019s downturn coming after McLaren sealed the constructors championship and therefore no longer needing his points is too juicy to ignore \u2014 that he\u2019s being jilted at the alter by a team that\u2019s got what it needed from him.<\/p>\n
There are several problems with this theory.<\/p>\n
The first is that Norris secretly being the team\u2019s number one driver, supposedly because he\u2019s British and McLaren is based in the UK, doesn\u2019t stack up. It ignores that the CEO is American and the team principal is Italian and that F1 teams hire staff from around the world.<\/p>\n
The second is the idea that any team would willingly nobble one of its cars \u2014 that it would spend millions of dollars building, preparing and servicing the car and spending millions in wages for a driver and their engineers and mechanics just to deliberately see them qualify out of position and finish off the podium.<\/p>\n
Of course some teams operate with explicit one-two driver policies \u2014 think Verstappen and every teammate he\u2019s had since Daniel Ricciardo, or Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello \u2014 but those second drivers never had their ability to perform actively hamstrung; they simply understood that they would be second priority when it came to strategy and would be required to give up victories and podiums in certain circumstances.<\/p>\n
Sometimes that would extend to receiving upgrades second \u2014 Verstappen always gets new parts first, for example \u2014 but that hasn\u2019t happened at McLaren this year.<\/p>\n
This idea also ignores that Piastri\u2019s score rate slowed before the team won the title \u2014 he finished behind Norris in Italy and then had that disastrous outing in Azerbaijan when the championship was still mathematically on the line.<\/p>\n
It also ignores that he\u2019s fallen off the cliff just as the team recognised that Verstappen was a threat.<\/p>\n
If the best way to beat Verstappen to the title is to have both cars finish in front of him, hobbling Piastri to the point that he\u2019s taken the chequered flag behind the Dutchman in all four of his last finishes \u2014 which has also hurt Norris\u2019s chances of beating him \u2014 is an odd way to achieve it.<\/p>\n
Yuki calls out 12 second pit stop | 02:17<\/p>\n
WHAT ABOUT WHAT I READ ON FACEBOOK?<\/p>\n
Finally, let\u2019s turn our attention to some of the more insidious disinformation that\u2019s been circulating in the comments on social media.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve dipped into the wild west of the comments since the Mexico City Grand Prix, you\u2019ve likely seen some truly wild claims about Piastri having quietly suffered all manner of technical problems that he, for reasons unknown, has refused to disclose.<\/p>\n
One particularly well-travelled copypasta declaring \u201cwhat actually happened\u201d alleges that Piastri was suffering both a DRS malfunction and an underpowered overheating power unit in qualifying that left him several tenths down on Norris along the straights and that FIA timing data proves it.<\/p>\n
All claims, however, are bogus.<\/p>\n
Piastri did suffer a single momentary DRS issue on his first lap of Q1. It did not recur.<\/p>\n
He also suffered a power blip on his first lap in Q2 at turn 5. It\u2019s visible in the telemetry, and the data traces for his following laps prove it did not happen again.<\/p>\n
FIA data shows both clocked almost identical top speeds: Norris achieved 349.8 kilometres per hour in the speed trap, while Piastri hit 349.1 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n
Telemetry shows both cars were evenly matched for top speed on their fastest laps at the end of all three DRS straights.<\/p>\n
On those laps Piastri lost a combined 0.036 seconds down the first two straights, which is easily explained by him getting worse exits from the preceding corners.<\/p>\n
He loses more than 0.1 seconds on the third straight, which followed the esses, where Piastri struggled all weekend.<\/p>\n
Finally, this particular post claims the cars weren\u2019t just set up differently but were fundamentally different \u2014 Norris with a bigger rear wing and high rake, supposedly to boost his cornering performance.<\/p>\n
You can easily compare photos of both cars for yourself and see this isn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s best not to believe everything you read in the comments.<\/p>\n
Russell continues to fume post race | 03:02<\/p>\n
SO IF ALL THE CONSPIRACIES ARE WRONG, WHAT\u2019S GOING ON?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt Norris is in the ascendancy.<\/p>\n
Before the break Piastri was on average 0.052 seconds faster in qualifying; since the break he\u2019s been 0.167 seconds adrift. He outqualified Norris 8-6 before the break but has been outqualified 4-2 since then.<\/p>\n
Having been tied 7-7 head to head for race finishes before the break, Norris has beaten Piastri in every race both have finished since then.<\/p>\n
But the stats tell only part of the story.<\/p>\n
Piastri was the faster driver at the Dutch Grand Prix and had Norris beaten before the Briton\u2019s engine popped.<\/p>\n
In Italy they were closely matched \u2014 enough that Piastri could capitalise on that slow stop before team orders reversed the places.<\/p>\n
Singapore has been a Norris track for the last two years, but Piastri outqualified him there this year. He was beaten in the race only thanks to that first-lap move, which McLaren retrospectively decided shouldn\u2019t have been allowed per its internal racing rules.<\/p>\n
At three of the first four races after the break, then, Piastri has been as good as ever. Even in Azerbaijan he thought he had strong pace despite the crashes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only the last two races that he\u2019s been slow.<\/p>\n
Historically Piastri has been poor at both circuits.<\/p>\n
Piastri vs. Norris, Circuit of the Americas<\/p>\n
Qualifying differential: Piastri 0.486 seconds slower, six grid places behind<\/p>\n
Race differential: Piastri 3.6 places behind, outscored 59-20<\/p>\n
Norris and Piastri being dumped out of Q1 in Mexico without a representative lap once apiece in the last two years means there\u2019s no good historical qualifying data for that track, but this year\u2019s qualifying gap of 0.588 seconds was the largest of the season.<\/p>\n
In three years in Mexico City Piastri has scored just 18 points to Norris\u2019s 53 points.<\/p>\n
Historically, then, these difficulties could have been expected.<\/p>\n
Marshalls cross track during Lawson lap | 00:23<\/p>\n
WHY IS HE SO BAD AT THESE CIRCUITS \u2014 AND WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE SEASON?<\/p>\n
McLaren boss Stella has an explanation for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in Austin and here the conditions are such that the car slides a lot, and I think this requires a particular familiarity with the car, with how you exploit the car, which is possibly something on which Oscar needs to still work a little bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA technical detail is that if you think in the race when the tyres are old and the car slides a lot, it\u2019s Lando\u2019s regime. Here the qualifying sessions are almost kind of similar to that regime. Oscar is more a driver of having grip and pushing the car in a certain way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The low-grip nature of the circuits, Stella argues, is the dominant factor in Piastri\u2019s underperformance.<\/p>\n
It seems as though it took until Saturday night for Piastri to come to terms with this shortcoming. Adjusting his approach on Sunday led to a much more competitive race, albeit one limited by his position in the pack around a circuit that made overtaking difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of became obvious after [qualifying] that there were a few things I needed to change pretty majorly in how I was driving, and today was about first tyring to limit the damage but trying to learn some things about that,\u201d he told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve just had to drive very differently the last couple of weekends, or I\u2019ve not driven differently when I should have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s been a little bit kind of strange to get my head around, because I\u2019ve been driving exactly the same as I have all year, it\u2019s just that these last couple of weekends the car or the tyres or something have required quite a different way of driving, and I\u2019ve just not really gone to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stella said Piastri\u2019s progress on Sunday was strong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pleased with him adopting some of the adjustment that we wanted to adopt today based on what we learnt in terms of driving our car fast in these special conditions that you have in Mexico,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOscar did it today, and it\u2019s a bit of shame that he was not in condition to do it more because we were pretty much all race in traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we know that we have added tools to the toolbox with Oscar, which will make him definitely even stronger for an exciting final part of the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the next four tracks, only one of the team \u2014 Las Vegas \u2014 takes place on a low-grip surface.<\/p>\n
Piastri should be back in the frame, then, in Sao Paulo next weekend \u2014 and he needs to be, because while his one-point deficit is practically nothing, he\u2019s fast running out of time to rebuild his title momentum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u2019s championship decline has captured the national imagination \u2014 or, perhaps, has become the stuff of collective…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[25617,2095,13273,146828,1724,64,14017,63,689,141204,961,145070,146833,2065,146835,146825,142976,146813,2791,31300,146843,146841,54203,2055,145081,115811,146829,146817,146842,146822,2057,146824,146839,817,146840,48815,813,816,75747,3875,2105,14211,146819,2328,1737,21772,2623,825,2184,844,146831,2627,2041,2067,677,146834,146821,90128,2119,14217,146814,121617,101414,146816,146846,146827,869,21751,45701,2072,2643,146826,1314,146845,146837,3595,146818,146838,85,146832,146820,31283,13773,36772,3370,146836,146823,146830,18911,146844,2614,146815,12000,145059,26119,5077],"class_list":["post-247218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-alan-belford-jones","tag-america","tag-andrea-stella","tag-apparent-sporting-injustice","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-austin","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-autodromo-hermanos-rodriguez","tag-azerbaijan","tag-bit-kind","tag-borderline-hysteria","tag-canada","tag-car-set-up","tag-car-set-ups","tag-car-slides","tag-cars-finish","tag-central-america","tag-championship-battle","tag-championship-decline","tag-comfortable-title-leader","tag-conspiracy-theories","tag-constructors-championship","tag-cross-track","tag-data-shows","tag-data-traces","tag-decline-sounds","tag-development-tap","tag-dollars-building","tag-europe","tag-exciting-final-part","tag-explicit-one-two-driver","tag-f1","tag-first-turn-smash","tag-form-slump","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-front-wing","tag-george-russell","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grands-prix","tag-historical-qualifying-data","tag-italy","tag-lando-norris","tag-lap-time","tag-las-vegas","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mexico","tag-michael-schumacher","tag-national-sporting-conversation","tag-nevada","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-one-two-driver-policies","tag-performance-decline","tag-peter-fox","tag-pit-talk","tag-race-differential","tag-race-finishes","tag-racing-rules","tag-rear-wing","tag-reasons-unknown","tag-receiving-upgrades","tag-recovery-drive","tag-rubens-barrichello","tag-safety-car-infringement","tag-score-rate","tag-sergio-perez","tag-sky-sports","tag-smoking-gun","tag-social-media","tag-social-media-myths","tag-sore-loser-syndrome","tag-southern-europe","tag-special-conditions","tag-speed-trap","tag-sports","tag-stats-tell","tag-suspension-tweak","tag-team-orders","tag-team-principal","tag-team-radio","tag-texas","tag-throwing-machines-way","tag-timing-data","tag-title-lead-loss","tag-title-momentum","tag-two-race-form-slump","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-upgrades-throwing-machines","tag-western-asia","tag-world-title-race","tag-worth-pointing","tag-yuki-tsunoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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