Oscar Piastri: I was the first to get hit

Oscar Piastri took 5th place in Canada, although he climbed to third position before the final restart, as the McLaren drivers did not pit – unlike their Mercedes rivals. It all ended with the fact that in the final stages of the Grand Prix, after getting new tires, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were able to stay ahead of the Australian on the straight line thanks to DRS.

At the same time, Oscar himself could not use DRS to protect himself from their attacks because his partner, Lando Norris, was driving too far ahead. After the race, Piastri was asked whether the team had considered the option of letting Lando, who could no longer overtake Max Verstappen’s leading position, drive a little slower so that Oscar could also use DRS?

“This is exactly what I wanted, but I’m not sure if it would be the best decision for the team,” Piastri explained, quoted by RacingNews365. “This would mean that the Mercedes drivers would get closer to Lando, because at the end of the race, when they were ahead of me, they were one second faster.

At that time such a solution would have helped me, but I’m not sure it would have been correct. George made a mistake and we had a duel with him, after which I also had a bit of an argument with Lewis. If I hadn’t resisted, they probably would have gotten 2nd and 3rd place.

To be honest, I felt like I could go at the same pace as Lando, but at the same time I understood that the Mercedes would be very fast on the new tires.”

Russell made his first attempt to overtake Piastri on lap 63, but contact occurred between their cars at the final chicane. Two laps later, Hamilton overtook the Australian McLaren driver while braking in the same corner. On the 66th lap, George also did this, and now everything worked, and then he overtook his teammate.

“The battle was very intense until the Mercedes drivers got ahead of me and then I realized what their plan was,” Oscar added. “It would be incredibly difficult to stop them in the final laps.” I was the first to take the hit and did everything I could to stay ahead, but they were clearly faster than everyone else.

I’m a bit disappointed because it looked like we could get on the podium, but we still managed to get a lot of points. On a weekend like this, everything could have turned out much worse. We have seen this in the example of others, so we assume that we have shown a good result.”