‘Things to review’ – McLaren looking further into ‘very harsh’ Piastri penalty

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McLaren say they will conduct further assessments of Oscar Piastri’s disputed penalty in the British Grand Prix, from both the stewards’ perspective and their own, having maintained the sanction was “very harsh”.

Piastri’s bid for victory at Silverstone a was scuppered by a 10-second penalty issued by race stewards for “erratic driving” in front of Max Verstappen as the championship leader “braked heavily” down the Hangar Straight after the Safety Car had signalled it was about to pull in to the pits for the race to resume.

Neither Piastri nor McLaren agreed with the decision, although there was solace for the team in that they still won the race with Lando Norris and finished one-two to further extend their big world title leads at their home event.

Still, team principal Andrea Stella felt there had been further considerations to address in the incident.

“I was actually taking another look at the data and the video before coming here,” Stella told reporters after Sunday’s race

“I have to say that the penalty still looks very harsh.

“There are a few factors that we would’ve liked the stewards to take into account.

“First of all, the Safety Car was called in very late, not leaving much time for the leader to actually restart in conditions in which you lose tyre temperature, you lose brake temperature, and the same goes for everyone.

“The 50 bar [brake pressure], it’s a pressure that you see during the Safety Car run, when you do some braking and acceleration.”

He added that they also wanted to look at whether “other competitors” – which in this case would have been Red Bull rival Verstappen – “made the situation look worse than what it is” in the incident.

However, the stewards’ verdict said that Verstappen had been forced to take “evasive action to avoid a collision”, briefly overtaking Piastri, as the Australian had “suddenly braked hard (59.2 psi of brake pressure) and reduced speed in the middle of the straight… from 218kph to 52kph”.

Stella said: “We’ll have to see also if other competitors kind of made the situation look worse than what it is, because we know that as part of the race craft of some competitors, definitely there’s also the ability to make others look like they are causing severe infringement when they are not.

“So a few things to review. A few things to review. But in itself, now the penalty has been decided, has been served, and we move on.”

Ultimately accepting the ruling, he added: “We will see if there’s anything to learn on our side, and I’m sure Oscar will use this motivation for being even more determined for the races to come, and try and win as many races as possible in the future.”

McLaren had wanted investigation to take place after the race

Having been in communication with Race Control after Piastri’s penalty was served, Stella said McLaren had actually wanted the stewards to investigate the incident after the race when they would have been able to speak to the drivers involved before issuing a judgement.

He accepted the stewards had a difficult job to do and said McLaren would keep an open dialogue with them about what happened.

“There’s a lot to consider,” said Stella.

“The fact that today we had a situation which we judged as a team as being a harsh penalty for one of our drivers, doesn’t change our opinion that the FIA and the stewards, they do a difficult job, they try their best. I think they do their best also to try and be consistent. There are many different scenarios, normally scenarios they change for some subtleties. It’s no different, I think, operating as a steward or the FIA from operating as a team.

“It’s always difficult to make the right calls. So what’s important is that we keep the dialogue going, I think we will have a good conversation with the FIA and with the stewards, and we will see how this situation could have been interpreted differently.

“What we said during the race was that we thought it was appropriate to discuss after the race, because I think we should have checked in detail the opinion of the drivers involved, and we should have checked why the safety car was called in so late, and then put together all the evidence such that the decision would be as fair as possible.”

F1 takes a brief break before the season resumes at the Belgian Grand Prix as the Sprint format returns, live on Sky Sports F1 on July 25-27. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime.

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