20/05/2024
NEWS STORY
Oscar Piastri believes grid penalty for impeding Kevin Magnussen cost him potential podium.
While it was Mas Verstappen who got all the attention, Piastri's Q3 lap was equally sensational, the youngster just 0.074s down on th world champion.
However, he was subsequently handed a 3-place grid drop for impeding the Haas driver, a mistake for which his team took the blame.
"The warning from our race engineer was a little late," admitted team boss Andrea Stell on Saturday. "Actually, Oscar checks the mirrors, as we have explained to the stewards. He sees that Magnussen is arriving. He assessed the situation: do I go to the left? There's grass. To the right, there is grass. If I stop at the apex, I'm certainly going to impede. If I cut the chicane, I'm going on the gravel.
"So he realises the best thing to do is just to go through the chicane as fast as possible, which is what he does. He actually goes full throttle, he cuts over the kerbs."
Nonetheless the stewards were not impressed and as a result the Australian started from the third row as opposed to the front alongside Verstappen.
Staring at Carlos Sainz' exhaust for the opening section of the race, the undercut subsequently worked in Piastri's favour, and while he was now ahead of the Spaniard he spent the remainder of the afternoon around 15s behind the second Ferrari.
"Starting further back, I think that was the biggest thing today," said the youngster. "I think the pace was honestly really good.
"In the first stint we were strong, just stuck behind Carlos," he continued. "Then the second stint, pushed very hard at the start to undercut him and then also to try and get Leclerc. Just with the tyres, they just don't like being pushed, so I just struggled a bit after that, looked like Charles had a very similar thing."
Speaking after the race, Stella admitted he understood the driver's frustration.
"I think Oscar pushed as much as he could in this race," he said. "I am saying this because looking at his data and speaking to his tyre engineers he is pushing at the limit at the end, so Oscar I think he went flat-out and I don't think he could have gone any faster. I think in managing the budget overall, Leclerc was a little bit more than Oscar and he could retain the podium.
"It's a little bit of a shame for Oscar," he added, "because the performance he deployed yesterday, he had the performance over the weekend to score a podium.
"We take the blame for that because the reason he got the penalty was impeding and that was to do with our operations, it doesn't have to do with Oscar making any mistake at all, it was a situation created by the team. But I am sure Oscar will have opportunities in the future."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Imola here.