Piastri on controversial Norris swap: 'We'll definitely discuss'

Oscar Piastri gave his views on McLaren's late decision to have him swap positions with teammate Lando Norris, stating that further discussions would be needed.

Piastri entered the race weekend with a healthy 34-point advantage over Norris in the Drivers' Standings, after the latter's unfortunate retirement at the preceding Dutch Grand Prix.

However, the Australian was notably slower than his McLaren rival at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza all weekend, and he qualified behind Norris.

Both drivers lined up behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen on the grid, as the MCL-39 wasn't the dominant package that it had been in the previous several Grands Prix.

McLaren Not on Usual Form

This trend continued into the race, which was won comfortably by Verstappen by almost 20 seconds. Norris held a manageable advantage over Piastri in the battle for second place, but tensions grew between the two McLaren drivers in the final few laps of the Grand Prix.

Both drivers pitted for soft tyres with just a handful of laps remaining, with Norris coming in a lap after Piastri. However, a slow 5.9-second stop from Norris allowed Piastri to snatch second position away from the Briton.

Since the poor pitstop wasn't Norris' fault, the McLaren pit wall asked Piastri to let Norris back through for P2. Despite a small protest, the Australian reluctantly allowed his teammate to pass him.

Norris has now closed the gap in the Standings to 31 points. Piastri weighed in on his performance in the race, while speaking to Sky Sports F1.

He said: "Happy isn’t the word but I’m not overly disappointed. It’s clear today as a team we didn’t have the pace to match Max.

"On my side, the first half of the race I struggled a bit with the balance. After that things improved as the medium tyre got older. But we needed to pit at some point.

"Not too many missed opportunities I don’t think, just not quite the pace and didn’t get the job done in qualifying either," Piastri lamented.

Was it a Fair Decision?

Piastri was asked about his opinion on his swap with Norris for position. Overall, the 24-year-old respected the decision made by the Woking-based outfit but asked for further clarification on the intra-team rules going further.

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He said: "It’s something we’ll discuss for sure. When you’re in the same team it’s the same pit crew, same mechanics, there’s a lot at stake not just for us but the whole team. I think today the decision to swap back was fair.

"Lando was ahead of me the whole race so I don’t have any issues with that. But we’ll definitely discuss it.

"There was nothing revolutionary from this weekend that I learnt. Qualifying further ahead helps you out and I think I know what I like and don’t like from the car. Trying to make sure we don’t end up in that spot again," concluded the Championship leader.

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