F1 News: Oscar Piastri Ignored Team Orders at Baku - 'It Won Me the Race'

Alex Harrington | Sep 15, 2024

May 2, 2024; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; McLaren driver Oscar Piastri (81) during a press conference in advance of the Miami Grand Prix at the Miami International Autodrome. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-Imagn Images / John David Mercer-Imagn Images

It's been revealed that Oscar Piastri secured a stunning victory at Azerbaijan by outrightly ignoring team orders. The Australian driver’s decision played a large role in his win at the Baku City Circuit, but it wasn't without a gamble from the Papaya driver.

Piastri found himself in a fierce battle against Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc during the opening laps. Believing that maintaining clean air was crucial for a chance of victory, Piastri overused his medium tires and eventually dropped back by 5.9 seconds by his pit stop on lap 15. Despite McLaren’s advice to manage his hard tires conservatively for the remaining 36 laps, Piastri’s instincts told him to go for the overtake on the Monesgasque anyway, which was beautifully successful.

Reflecting on his bold choices, Piastri said via Racer:

“I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer because I basically tried to do that in the first stint and completely cooked my tires. My engineer came on the radio and said, ‘Let’s not do that again,’ basically, and I completely ignored him the next lap and sent it down the inside.

"It’s what won me the race.”

As the race unfolded, Piastri made the calculated decision that he couldn’t afford to stay back and wait for Leclerc’s tires to degrade.

“I think at that point I felt like trying to stay back and wait for Charles to deg was never going to happen. I thought he was just going to secure us P2.”

His decisive overtake strategy was driven by his reflections on previous races.

“I got to the end of the straight thinking, ‘If I had done a couple of things differently here, I maybe had a chance.’ So when I had a similar opportunity after the pit stop, I had to take it. It was a high-risk, high-commitment … but that’s what I needed to do to try and win the race, because I wasn’t really going to be that keen to finish second,” Piastri said.

Holding onto the lead for the rest of the race proved to be an immense challenge. Piastri confessed, “I knew that getting into the lead was going to be, let’s say, 40 percent of the job, but that hanging on to it was going to be 60 percent, and I knew that I’d used the tires pretty heavily to try and get in front and I knew what kind of impact that had in the first stint.”

Keeping his focus and maintaining the lead required exceptional skill and mental resilience. He admitted:

“Just trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly stressful. I couldn’t make a single mistake. I made a couple, but at a track like Baku it’s impossible to be driving flat out and not make any. I was just fortunate that they weren’t big enough that it cost me. The whole 30 laps where I was trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly tough.”

Adding another feather to his cap, Piastri noted:

“I think for me that has to be one of the best races I’ve done.”

The victory at Baku continues Piastri’s impressive form this season, making him the highest-scoring driver over the last 11 races and propelling McLaren into the lead in the constructors' championship for the first time in over a decade.

Acknowledging the team's effort involved in this success, Piastri said:

“It’s not just down to me. We’ve had a car that’s been very quick and consistently quick in a lot of places, and even if we’ve not necessarily been the outright quickest everywhere, we’ve been in with a chance everywhere.

“Today was definitely one of those days where we weren’t necessarily the quickest, but we had a car that could put us in the fight. We had a pit stop that could put us in the fight. We had some teamwork that put us in the fight, and it all managed to pay off.

“I feel like I’ve been driving well. It’s been clicking a bit more for me this year in terms of the things I want to work on from last season. Combine that with a car that’s capable of winning, and results like this are possible.”