{"id":916437,"date":"2026-10-05T01:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/916437\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T01:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:24:12","slug":"wrong-decision-defiant-piastri-pit-act-lays-bare-mclaren-woes-as-2026-fate-sealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/916437\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Wrong decision\u2019: Defiant Piastri pit act lays bare McLaren woes as 2026 fate sealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri\u2019s response to a \u201cwrong\u201d tyres decision to start the Bahrain Grand Prix saw him overrule team instructions, as a sixth-placed finish sealed his 2026 fate.<\/p>\n

Piastri\u2019s sixth-placed finish \u2013 after starting from P6 \u2013 in Kuala Lumpur mathematically ended his chances of competing for the Drivers\u2019 Championship, which has been all but won by Kimi Antonelli after Mercedes teammate George Russell\u2019s DNF left him 84 points adrift in the standings.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

Piastri had argued with his team in the formation lap, before insisting \u201cI need to box \u2013 too wet\u201d.<\/p>\n

While it dropped him down to P10 in the early stages, the change to intermediates proved a wise move, rising to sixth by race\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to know what the right decision was to make,\u201d Piastri said post-race. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it looked wet, but we felt that if we could stay on the track, we\u2019d have a good chance of making progress. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut as soon as I took turn 1 coming out of the pit lane, I realised we\u2019d made the wrong decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren engineer Tom Stallard praised Piastri on the team\u2019s radio for the decision afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, the move didn\u2019t mask another disappointing weekend for McLaren, whose hold on third in the constructors\u2019 standings slipped to 18 points with Red Bull closing to 18 points off the back of Max Verstappen\u2019s stunning win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When asked about the team\u2019s issues, Piastri was blunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t quite make the right calls and ultimately we weren\u2019t quick enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think us and Ferrari seem a little bit in a similar ballpark. But that ballpark is not fighting for race wins. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo we need to improve. We know that. And we\u2019ll try our best to make sure we try and improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team principal Andrea Stella agreed, saying the team was \u201cfourth in terms of performance\u201d in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we\u2019d got every decision spot on, I don\u2019t think we could have achieved any higher than Oscar\u2019s sixth place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Briton only received a reprimand for the incident after being summoned by stewards for driving erratically under safety car conditions.<\/p>\n

Speaking post-race after finishing ninth, Norris said low visibility meant he simply didn\u2019t see Russell pulling to the side of the track to retire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t see from the angle and, from where I was, how much everyone had stopped because of George on the inside,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo by the time I kind of looked at George and looked back, I could see them. But it\u2019s hard when you\u2019re directly behind to see if they\u2019re going 100, 200, or 10, and they were going 10, so I just got completely caught out. <\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s my fault at the end of the day, so I was just unlucky with it. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone just checked up so much and I just got screwed over by it, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident comes just a week after Norris\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you cause a crash on a restart like this, you should have at least a one-race ban,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just careless \u2026 it\u2019s not driving that deserves to be in Formula 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unfortunate timing of Norris\u2019 Malaysian near-miss wasn\u2019t lost on Polish F1 commentators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u2019s response to a \u201cwrong\u201d tyres decision to start the Bahrain Grand Prix saw him overrule team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-916437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916437","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=916437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}