Oscar Piastri’s race engineer, Tom Stallard, commented on the driver’s disregard for his warnings in Baku. Stallard admitted that Piastri ignoring his instructions was actually beneficial because he wasn’t sure if Piastri could mount a challenge against Leclerc in the final stages. In the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Piastri, who was in second place behind Charles Leclerc, thought the race outcome might already be decided in favor of the Ferrari driver after Leclerc built a six-second gap in the latter part of the first stint.
Despite closely following Ferrari in the opening laps, Piastri’s tires were damaged and performance declined as the stint progressed. McLaren pitted Piastri on lap 16 to change to Pirelli’s hard tires. Leclerc also pitted a lap later, and when he rejoined, the gap was less than two seconds. Piastri quickly passed Alex Albon and overtook Leclerc on lap 20 to take the lead.
After winning the race, Piastri apologized to Stallard because the engineer had advised him to be cautious with the hard tires, but Piastri had ignored the warning. Looking back, Stallard was pleased with Piastri’s decision. On the F1 Nation podcast, Stallard explained, “Initially, we attacked Charles but couldn’t pass him, causing significant tire damage and making it hard to catch up. Charles created a big gap. Then, after a good pit stop, Lando did a great job, and we found ourselves behind Leclerc.”
“I reminded Oscar of what happened in the first stint since there were still many laps left, so I told him to remember the tire damage and be tactical this time. But he knows me well and understands that while the scientist in me said that, the racer in me was urging him to ‘go catch him!’ Thankfully, the racer in Oscar went out and did just that.”
Stallard said, “We saw that Ferrari and Red Bull couldn’t overtake Oscar, and I’m not sure if the luck would have changed if the cars were in different positions.” After taking the lead, Piastri defended it despite Leclerc’s attempts to pass. The McLaren driver held firm in his defense, maintaining the inside line and forcing Leclerc to use up his tires while attempting to pass on the outside. Leclerc’s tires were severely worn out with three laps to go, giving Piastri a chance to pull away and increase his lead.
Stallard noted, “It was definitely stressful. Because at that moment, you know the driver is not comfortable, so you lose a lot of opportunities to communicate with him.” “So we tried not to overload him with all the decision-making processes that we usually communicate to the driver because he already had enough on his plate.” Instead, they left him mostly to his own devices, only providing updates on gaps, managing the battery, and the condition of his and Charles’ tires. “We tried to provide useful information without being distracting,” Stallard explained. “It’s a very tough job because you’re observing while also thinking a lot.”
After his second victory of the season, Piastri is 91 points behind Max Verstappen and 32 points behind Lando Norris in the championship standings.
