McLaren delivered another impressive weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Lando Norris winning from pole and Oscar Piastri second.

Knowing he’d have a tough battle ahead of him if he wanted to win, Piastri made a bold pit strategy call, having pushed the limits in an attempted overtake that nearly saw him swipe the back of Norris’ McLaren.

Oscar Piastri admits to pushing the limits in Austrian GP

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had a stellar start at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Norris launched off the line with authority to convert his pole position into the race lead at the first corner while behind him, team-mate Piastri carved past Charles Leclerc to move from third to second at Turn 1.

The Australian driver remained hot on Norris’ tail during the early stage of the race, hoping to take advantage of DRS to slingshot into the lead of the race.

Piastri was told by his race engineer that it was “your call on the racing situation,” and he remained close to Norris’ tail, mopping up time as his team-mate made a mistake.

On Lap 20, though, it was Piastri’s turn to err. As he tried to cut past Norris, he locked up and only narrowly avoided clipping Norris’ car. The near miss saw Piastri drop back, his race engineer informing him that the move was “marginal.”

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Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, after the race, Piastri admitted that he enjoyed the close racing with his team-mate, but that he was “probably pushing the limits a bit much.”

“We’re fighting for race wins in Formula 1; it’s going to be pretty tough work and pretty hard,” he said.

Asked how he felt about the team calling the move ‘marginal,’ Piastri replied, “I thought it was a fair comment. Locking up and missing the back of your team-mate by not a lot is certainly pushing the boundaries.

“So I mean, even if I hadn’t been told anything, I didn’t think it was a wise decision to try that one again.”

His next shot at usurping Norris cam via an alternate pit strategy. Piastri was given two options: pit immediately after Norris and emerge just outside of DRS range behind his team-mate, or pit several laps later and emerge with “four [seconds] with delta,” and a tyre advantage.

Piastri chose the latter option, pitting four laps after Norris — only to emerge six seconds behind his team-mate.

It was a bold call from the Australian driver, one that ultimately didn’t pan out. But he didn’t regret the call while speaking with the media.

“I knew that I was always going to be pitting second in that scenario, and for me, it felt like if I couldn’t stay with within DRS, then getting back inside one second was going to be very, very tough,” Piastri explained.

“So I kind of wanted to go a bit different and give myself some fresher tyres and hopefully be able to use them at the end of the stint.

“It didn’t really pan out that way, unfortunately, but that was the thinking, at least.

“We’ll go back and look and see whether that was the right thing to do, but in the moment, I was always going to lose some amount of time by pitting a lap later. So I kind of went, ‘Why not try something a bit different?’”

Asked if he thought he might have had a shot at the win if he’d pitted earlier, Piastri reiterated that he and the team would analyse the data, but that he was confident in his decision during the race.

“I had the past experience of being just stuck outside DRS, and that was a pretty painful place to be, so I didn’t really want to be there again,” he said.

“In the moment, I thought that giving myself a bit more work to do, but with better tyres, was going to be an interesting option.

“With hindsight, maybe you can say it wasn’t the right call, but there’s a lot of things you can say in hindsight.”

While every driver naturally hopes to win, Piastri nevertheless made the most of the Austrian Grand Prix by taking the second slot on the podium.

He remains at the head of the World Drivers’ Championship standings with 216 points, 15 points ahead of Lando Norris.

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