Piastri’s Crisis: The Monza Fallout That Shattered His Championship Dream!
In a shocking revelation that has sent ripples through the Formula 1 community, Oscar Piastri has confessed that the controversial team orders from McLaren during the Italian Grand Prix continue to haunt him. This pivotal moment, where he was instructed to relinquish second place back to his teammate Lando Norris, has been identified as a critical factor in Piastri’s catastrophic performance during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, a weekend that has left his 2025 championship aspirations hanging by a thread.
At Monza, Piastri’s compliance with the team’s request was anything but straightforward. After a pitstop delay forced Norris to relinquish his position, McLaren’s directive to swap places was met with Piastri’s pointed remark over team radio, questioning the fairness of a policy that seemed to change the rules of engagement: “A slow pitstop was part of racing.” This moment of tension not only marked a shift in internal dynamics but also planted the seeds of doubt in Piastri’s mind.
Fast forward to Baku, and the fallout was palpable. Piastri’s weekend was a disaster, characterized by a crash in qualifying, a botched start, and erratic performance in practice. In an eye-opening interview on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Piastri candidly reflected on his struggles, revealing that the shadow of Monza loomed large: “Ultimately a combination of quite a few things. Obviously the race before that was Monza, which I didn’t feel was a particularly great weekend from my own performance, and there was obviously what happened with the pitstops.”
The young driver elaborated on the compounding issues that plagued him in Baku, stating, “There were some things in the lead-up, let’s say, that were maybe not the most helpful. We had an engine problem in FP1 that kind of unsettled things a bit, then I was driving not that well, we were on C6 tyres that weekend that are now notoriously tricky to handle.” Each minor setback accumulated, culminating in what Piastri described as “the worst weekend I’ve ever had in racing, but probably the most useful in some ways.”
While he refrained from outright blaming McLaren’s team orders for his errors, it was evident that the experience had shaken his confidence at a crucial juncture in the season. Piastri’s championship lead rapidly evaporated after Monza, where he had comfortably held a commanding 44-point advantage over Norris and a staggering 104 points ahead of Max Verstappen. Now, as the season nears its climax, Piastri finds himself trailing Norris by 24 points and only 25 points ahead of Verstappen, a stark contrast to his once-dominant position.
With the final three races approaching, the pressure is mounting for Piastri. Can he shake off the psychological burden of Monza and rekindle his championship bid, or will this pivotal moment become the defining blemish on his season? As fans and analysts alike hold their breath, one thing is clear: the road ahead is fraught with challenges, and the specter of team orders looms ever larger in the rearview mirror of his racing career.








