Australian Oscar Piastri has opened up on “the worst weekend I’ve ever had in racing” and how McLaren’s team orders call at Monza may have still been playing on his mind in the lead-up to that Baku horror show.
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Piastri entered the weekend at Baku with a 31-point lead over McLaren teammate Lando Norris, but his run of 34 consecutive points finishes in races came to a crushing end as the Australian crashed out on the opening lap.
It has only gone downhill from there for Piastri, who is now needing a miracle to run down Norris.
While the Baku disaster is an obvious turning point in Piastri’s year, it is also easy to forget the team orders drama earlier in the month at Monza.
Piastri had a chance to extend his championship lead at Monza and was tracking for a P2 finish before McLaren ordered him to let Norris go ahead.
Norris had been running second for the majority of the race but a faulty wheel gun delayed his pit stop, seeing Piastri move ahead before later being requested to give back the position to his teammate and championship rival.
Piastri was initially frustrated by the decision, responding on team radio that “we said a slow pit stop was part of racing”.
“So I don’t really get what’s changed here, but if you really want me to do it then I’ll do it.”
The Australian later accepted it was a fair decision when speaking to reporters after the race, but that didn’t stop it from being a topic of debate, especially as Piastri’s championship lead dwindled.
Speaking on the F1’s own Beyond the Grid podcast, when reflecting on his struggles at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Piastri suggested he was finding it hard to move past what happened at Monza as well.
“The blame is not all on Oscar!” | 00:36
“Ultimately (it’s) a combination of quite a few things,” Piastri said on the podcast. “Obviously, the race before that was Monza, which I didn’t feel was a particularly great weekend from my own performance and there was obviously what happened with the pitstops.
“But then also in Baku itself, Friday was tough, things weren’t working, I was overdriving, I wasn’t very happy with how I was driving and ultimately probably trying to make up for that a little bit on Saturday.
“I think there was kind of some things in the lead-up, let’s say, that were maybe not the most helpful and then things that happened on the weekend.
“We had an engine problem in FP1 that kind of unsettled things a bit, and then I was driving not that well. We were on C6 tyres that weekend, which are notoriously tricky to handle. There were just a lot of little things that eventually kind of added up.”
Piastri, who now trails Norris by 24 points ahead of next week’s race in Las Vegas, went on to say Baku was the “perfect storm of quite a few things”, calling it “the worst weekend I’ve ever had in racing”.
“There’s no beating around the bush, that was the worst weekend I’ve ever had in racing, but probably the most useful in some ways,” he said.
“So, when you can start to look at things like that, normally that helps you out quite a lot.
“(If) you look at some of the names that have had some pretty shocking weekends, or almost unbelievable weekends or races or moments in their career where things have gone wrong; it happens to anyone.
“There’s not one person in racing that doesn’t have some kind of disastrous story of how a weekend went wrong for them. Looking at it from that perspective does help a lot, but you still need to learn the things you need to learn from weekends like that.”
Piastri finishes 5th after crash chaos | 03:20
WOLFF SET TO SELL MERCEDES SHARES IN MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR VALUATION
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is in talks to sell a minority share of his stake in the championship-winning Formula 1 team.
The UK Financial Times reports the prospective buyer is George Kurtz, founder of cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which already sponsors the Mercedes team.
Wolff is a one-third owner of the UK-based squad in an equal-share agreement with former majority owner Mercedes and chemicals company Ineos.
According to Sportico, the deal would value the team at US$6 billion (A$9.15 billion), by far the largest valuation for a Formula 1 team in history.
Reports elsewhere suggest Kurtz would take a 5 per cent share in the team, diluting Wolff’s ownership to 28 per cent.
If the valuation is correct, the 5 per cent share will trade hands for approximately US$300 million ($A458 million).
Wolff bought his original 30 per cent share for a reported US$165 million (A$251.7 million) in 2013.
The same 30 per cent share of the team would be worth US$1.8 billion (A$2.75 billion) today, according to this valuation, representing an increase in value of almost 1100 per cent.
Mercedes told Autosport in a statement that it “will be making no comment on this. The governance of the team will remain unchanged, and all three partners (Mercedes-Benz, Toto and Ineos) are fully committed to the ongoing success of Mercedes-Benz in Formula 1”.
At US$6 billion, Mercedes would have by far the largest valuation of any team in Formula 1 history.
The value would eclipse reigning double constructors champion McLaren, which was valued at around US$5 billion (A$7.63 billion) earlier this year when the team bought back approximately 30 per cent of its shares from minority investors in September.
Ferrari’s Formula 1 team has been given a similar valuation, though its market capitalisation as a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange is US$74.7 billion (A$114 billion).
AUDI SET TITLE TARGET AHEAD OF 2026 LAUNCH
The Audi Formula 1 team has set itself a five-year target to win its first world title after launching a concept livery in Germany on Wednesday.
Audi has purchased long-time independent team Sauber ahead of next year’s sweeping rule changes, when the Swiss squad will race under the Audi name and with Audi-built power units.
The program has been beset by rumours of delays and underdelivery, and there have been several rounds of managerial bloodletting in the years since the brand announced it would enter the sport in 2022.
But aspirations remain high for the team, with Audi CEO Gernot Döllner proclaiming that he expected to be a championship contender from 2030.
“The next two years we will be challengers,” he said. “We have to improve from where we are today and have ambitions also for 2026 and 2027. These years are the challenger years.
“From 2028 on, we want to become real competitors and then from 2030 on fight for the championship.”
Setting concrete date-based targets is risky business in Formula 1. Though Audi isn’t a brand-new entry, it’s starting from a low base with Sauber, which is ninth in this year’s 10-team championship and which has required significant investment in its facilities to bring them up to grade after years of financial austerity.
Renault famously set itself a five-year plan to return to competitiveness after re-entering the sport in 2016. That then became a new 100-race plan — essentially the same thing — when it became clear it was going to miss its original target.
Those 100 races expired this year, with Alpine anchored to the bottom of the constructors championship.
Audi chief technical officer and chief operations officer Mattia Binotto, the former Ferrari team principal, said the ambitious plan was achievable because Audi would be building both chassis and power unit.
“In order to become successful and a winning team in the future, yes, it may add complexity, but it’s a requirement,” he said. “Having the full control on both the chassis and the power unit gives you a competitive advantage, a technical advantage.
“Because for Audi it’s not only about participating, but about winning, it was a given, I would say. So we accept the complexity because we have a clear ambition.”
Sauber is 20 points behind Racing Bulls in the battle for sixth in the constructors championship but is only 10 points behind Aston Martin in seventh.
The 62 points scored so far this year is already its largest tally since 2012.
GRILL’D ‘APOLOGISES’ FOR PIASTRI BURGER CURSE
Australian burger chain Grill’d has responded to social media commentary suggesting its burgers are cursed following Oscar Piastri’s severe dip in form as the championship heads towards its conclusion.
Grill’d inked a personal sponsorship deal with Piastri earlier this year, and in September, after the Australian finished third at the Italian Grand Prix, the chain launched a promotion promising a free second burger every time the then title leader took home a podium trophy.
Piastri, however, hasn’t finished on the podium since, and earlier this week the business watered down the criteria, offering the bonus burger whenever Piastri took the chequered flag.
It led to some humorously claiming that Grill’d was responsible for the Melburnian’s score slump
Now the burger chain has responded, posting a tongue-in-cheek apology for creating “a burger so delicious it could change the course of F1 history”.
“We’ve seen the tweets, the TikToks, the memes,” the company said in a statement. “And yes, we’ve heard the whispers. Apparently, our OP81 Burger is ‘cursed’.
“We’d like to apologise. To those who believe in the ‘curse’.
“Sure, we can take a joke about a curse, but we’ll never bet against a guy like Oscar Piastri.
“At the end of the day, Oscar’s our homegrown Aussie hero and we’ll always be in his corner.
“Today, tomorrow, and forever — we’ve got your back, Oscar.
“Fast, fearless, and representing the best of Australia, we couldn’t be prouder of him and to have his name on one of our burgers.”
Grill’d has also mocked up a merchandise line bearing the phrases “Sorry not sorry”, “Certified cursed”, and “Apologies to the motorsport gods”.
F1 TEAM SORRY AFTER STAFF MEMBER APPEARS TO ENCOURAGE LANDO BOOING
Racing Bulls released a statement apologising after a video surfaced on social media appearing to show a team member giving a thumbs down as Lando Norris collected his winner’s trophy at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris was booed by spectators at last weekend’s race and the Racing Bulls employee appeared to be encouraging the behaviour, with a fellow worker pictured trying to put their arm down and stop them.
In a statement, Racing Bulls said it was “aware” of the video and stressed “it doesn’t reflect our team’s values or the spirit of VCARB”.
“The matter has been handled internally,” the statement added.
“We believe in celebrating great racing and showing respect to every driver, team, and fan both on and off the track.”
The crowd’s behaviour was later condemned, although Norris himself didn’t seem too fussed by it.
“It’s one weekend at a time. I’m happy, I’m focused on myself,” Norris said.
“I keep my head down, I ignore all of this, keep to myself. It’s working at the minute, so I’m happy.”