Oscar Piastri finished the Formula 1 Italian GP in fifth place, but had a race marked by constant battles and changes in pace. The McLaren driver stated that a mistake by Max Verstappen made one of the battles especially complicated.
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The Australian faced Lewis Hamilton, Verstappen, and his own teammate, Lando Norris, at different moments of the race. For Piastri, the number of battles made energy management difficult and made it hard to identify the best strategy inside the cockpit.
“It’s difficult. You know that if you use extra energy, you will pay for it somewhere,” said Piastri. He said he was gradually increasing his advantage over Hamilton, until the Brit spent a lot of energy to overtake him and open about a second gap, a difference that ended up disappearing on a straight.
The situation with Verstappen changed after a mistake by the Red Bull Racing driver at turn 1. Piastri believes Verstappen also went over the accumulated curbs on the track at turn 2 and took time to recover performance, which caused a sequence of closings and openings between the two.
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“He made a small mistake at turn 1, and I think the track was breaking up quite a bit at turn 2. I think he went onto the accumulated curbs, and it took a little while to get that off the side of the car,” added Piastri. The McLaren driver wanted Verstappen to stay ahead to take advantage of his pace, but the speed difference after the incident created an uncomfortable situation.
“It was a bit complicated, because he was a bit faster, but not enough for me to comfortably stay behind him without compromising my driving,” he concluded. Despite this, Piastri considered the pace shown at the end of the stint positive, even after a race he described as quite peculiar.
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