Oscar Piastri Responds To McLaren Team Order Fallout

Piastri was behind Norris for the entirety of the race at Monza before making his pitstop late in the event. While his stop was 1.9 seconds, Norris was stationary for four seconds longer, meaning he fell behind when returning to the track.

With Norris having surrendered pitstop priority to ensure Piastri remained ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, McLaren ordered a swap of positions which has been viewed as controversial externally.

Asked during the FIA pre-Azerbaijan Grand Prix press conference whether he felt like he and Norris had enough freedom to battle each other for the drivers' title, Piastri insisted: "Yes, I do. I think my biggest takeaway from Monza was that on pace and my own performance that weekend, I didn’t deserve to finish higher than third, regardless of what else happened in the race."

"The decision that we made as a team... there’s no right answer to that decision."

Addressing the reaction from pundits and fans in the aftermath, Piastri added: "If we had done the opposite, then you’d have the opposite half of the fans saying that was wrong, and vice versa. So ultimately, there’s no correct decision in that.

"Not really. Obviously, it was a big moment from the race, and I feel like a lot of fans are quite quick to jump on things that are deemed controversial, so, I’m not that surprised.

"But I do think we have enough freedom to control our own destiny in the championship."

McLaren's title glory

McLaren can sew up the constructors' title at the Baku City Circuit this weekend to add to the triumph from last season.

On how this year's dominance compares to the title win from last term, Piastri explained: "I think very different, because this year has just looked very different to last year.

"Last season went down to the final race, and a pretty eventful final race as well. So I think this year, clearly the car has been a step better, the team has been performing very well. So there’s much more of a sense of inevitability about this year, which is an amazing position to be in.

"It’s a testament to all the hard work from everyone at the team. I’m the lucky guy that gets to drive the car at the end of the day."

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