Oscar Piastri: “We made right call” | Separate McLaren “mistake” identified

McLaren made a “mistake” at the F1 Australian Grand Prix - but not in their big decision to swap their drivers around.

Lando Norris finished on the podium after teammate Oscar Piastri was asked to surrender his position.

Piastri, who finished fourth, reacted: “It was fine. Lando qualified in front and tried something different at the first stop, and was quicker than me in the first stint.

“It looked like he could get in front of the Ferraris, I was holding pace with them.

“Yeah, Lando was a bit quicker so it was completely fair. As a team, we made the right call.”

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc.

The McLarens were third and fourth, in a grand prix featuring DNFs for Max Verstappen and both Mercedes drivers.

But McLaren might have secured P2 if not for an error earlier in the race, Karun Chandhok noticed.

“I think they made a mistake,” the Sky Sports pundit explained.

“They started third and fifth, on the clean side. Both drivers got an okay getaway. They held their positions.

“On Lap 10, Norris was ahead of Leclerc. Oscar was behind him. Further back was George Russell who had pitted earlier, and was coming fast with a fresh set of tyres.

“McLaren and Ferrari reacted to George coming. They didn’t want to lose position.

“But they reacted with Oscar leading Lando for an extra five laps.

“Those five laps meant that, with fresh tyres, Oscar and Leclerc jumped ahead of Lando.

“In hindsight, if you say they could have pitted Lando and Leclerc on Lap 10 instead of Oscar, actually Oscar was still four seconds ahead of George.

“He could have pitted on Lap 11, still ahead of George. Lando could have still stayed ahead of Leclerc.

“They could have won on both counts.

“They swapped their drivers on Lap 29 which was a fair decision. They had allowed Oscar to undercut Lando.

“Oscar then made an error, he locked up the front on Lap 39, which took him out of the fight. He was 8-10 seconds behind.

“If you look at Lando’s pace throughout that grand prix, he was only 2-3s behind Leclerc.

“I do think if he pitted at the same time as Leclerc on Lap 10, and Oscar pitted on Lap 11, I think [Norris] could’ve hung onto second-place.”

Norris’ P3 is his 14th career podium - the most-ever for an F1 driver without a grand prix victory.

Norris reacted: “I'm very happy and proud of the team as P3 and P4 are a lot of points in the championship, so that's the first thing.

“We missed out on Charles, I think our pace was a little bit better. He undercut us in the first stint so maybe a little bit of hope for second place.”