Oscar Piastri began the Imola GP on pole, with the pace to win. However, with a few unlucky safety car calls, he not only found himself falling from lead to third place but being overtaken by his teammate on the final stint.
In Parc fermé, Piastri didn’t hide his disappointment with the way the weekend turned. He said, “Disappointing, obviously, but I think we made a few wrong calls after that anyways.”
“Not our best Sunday, so definitely a lot of things to look at and review from that one. But yeah, well done to Max and Red Bull, I think it was a good move, but also they had pace today.”
The vital moment for Piastri was losing the lead to Verstappen in Tamburello on lap 1. The Dutchman made an impressive lunge down the inside, breaking impossibly late and making it past the McLaren.
Piastri admitted there wasn’t much for him to do, saying, “Yeah, I just braked too early and it was a good move by Max as well.“
Bad luck
Once the safety cars were called, it was an uphill battle for the Australian. Which he lost due to an extreme tyre disadvantage. He said, “Yeah, it was tricky. Obviously the VSC was perfectly timed for Max and Lando and then I’d obviously used both my tyres at that point. Both my hard tyres.”
“So it made the last restart pretty tricky and I tried my best to hang on to second. But yeah, just had nowhere near enough grip, so there it is.”
He tried valiantly to hold off his teammate in the closing stint. But as Norris closed with much newer tyres, he was a sitting duck.
In Parc fermé he spoke about the move, “Yeah, it was tricky. I tried my best to hang on, but yeah. Just didn’t have the grip. Yeah, I tried my best and it was inevitable, I think he was going to get passed. But I wasn’t going to give up without a fight.”
However, if a bad weekend for Piastri is a podium finish, the championship is still playing in his favour.
