Strategy flop

Piastri miffed: “It’s hard to digest”

Oscar Piastri was visibly frustrated.(Bild: AP/Darko Bandic)

Oscar Piastri leaves Qatar with a lot of frustration in his stomach. The pole-setter not only missed out on victory, but also suffered a major setback in the world championship battle. "The result is hard to digest," said the Australian.

Even on the radio after the race, Piastri showed how annoyed he was about the evening. A near-perfect weekend (Piastri had already won the sprint race and took pole, ed.) was gone. "Obviously we didn't do it right tonight," he said, visibly upset, in an interview after the race.

"I drove the best race I could and as fast as I could. I gave it my all," he emphasized and explained: "In hindsight, it's pretty obvious what we would have done [behind the safety car]."

"But I'm sure we'll discuss it as a team," Piastri announced. The result was "a bit hard to digest". After all, the lost victory means he has slipped to third place in the championship.

McLaren boss speaks of "huge mistake"
 McLaren CEO Zak Brown was even clearer. "We clearly made a huge mistake. Oscar was absolutely fallible all weekend. We threw away his win and Lando's podium. That's very frustrating. There's nothing we can do about it now."

And McLaren Team Principal admitted: "For sure the podium was possible for Lando, but we lost the win with Oscar and lost the podium with Lando. As always, we will learn from the race and get stronger for the next event, which will be even more important. To be honest, we didn't expect everyone else to pit."

While Piastri is struggling, teammate Lando Norris remains in the race for the championship title. A third place in Abu Dhabi is enough for him to be crowned world champion for the first time.