Piastri Belgian GP pitstop error “costly” in F1 victory charge

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes Oscar Piastri’s mistake at the final pitstop of the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix proved “costly” in his pursuit of victory.

The Australian was seeking a second consecutive F1 win after his maiden triumph in Hungary and was on pace with the leaders throughout the 44-lap event at Spa-Francorchamps.

But making his final stop, Piastri overshot his pitbox and the subsequent reshuffling by his pitcrew meant it took 4.4s to change all four tyres on his car.

This left the McLaren driver with a higher mountain to climb to catch and pass Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and, ultimately, more wear on his tyres by the time he arrived on the back of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.

Having finished on the tail of the seven-time champion, who was runner-up on the road to team-mate George Russell before the latter was disqualified for an underweight Mercedes, Stella believes the pitstop error proved pivotal.

“Like Oscar said immediately in the in-lap on the radio, ‘apologies for the pitstop’, because I think he realises that that could have been a bit costly,” said Stella.

“Potentially, he would have just queued behind Hamilton, but he could have also been in condition to attack. So I think this 1.5-2s loss at the pitstop ultimately proved to be relatively costly.

“Even because then you would have been behind Leclerc earlier with fresher tyres, which means you could have finalised the overtaking more easily. So a bit of a cascade.

“We do have to work with drivers in terms of like…even in the hot moments, just don’t overcook it at the pitstop position because it can be very costly. I think he had something similar in Silverstone as well.”

Despite the error, Piastri was in great form throughout the race, always ahead of team-mate Lando Norris and destined for the podium from early on.

He was able to carry his speed across different tyre compounds in each stint, something he has struggled with since making the step into F1.

When put to him that this was one of his best races since joining the grid, Piastri alluded to his overshoot, by joking: “I’m not sure my front jack man agrees, but no, I think it was a really strong race.

“To try and get past Charles was not easy and I think if I didn’t manage to do it on that lap, I probably would have been stuck there for a long time.

“So that was a…