
Oscar Piastri says he'll fuel his F1 title charge with ‘frustration' at race-deciding penalty
Piastri was reluctant to join in the celebrations for McLaren's fourth one-two finish of 2025 after a 10-second penalty imposed for sharp braking behind the safety car meant he finished behind teammate and title rival Lando Norris in Sunday's race. He leads Norris by eight points at the halfway point of the season.
McLaren rejected Piastri's request over the radio for the team to cancel out the effect of the penalty by asking the drivers to swap places. It would have put the Australian driver back into the lead and potentially deprived Norris of an emotional first home win.
'Lando didn't do anything wrong, so I don't think it would have been particularly fair to have swapped, but I thought I'd at least ask,' Piastri said Sunday.
'It doesn't change much for the championship. I feel like I did a good job today. I did what I needed to. That's all I need, and I will use the frustration to make sure I win some more races later.'
McLaren's dilemma
Piastri added that he 'knew what the answer was going to be' before he messaged the team, but was searching for 'a small glimmer of hope.'
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the only way that Piastri would have stayed in front on Sunday would have been if the safety car came out and both McLarens stopped for fresh tires. In that event, Norris would have waited behind Piastri.
'Oscar is a very fast, very strong, very determined driver. He proved that,' Stella added. 'It didn't lead to a win, but I'm sure it will lead to many more wins.'
It isn't the first time McLaren has had to deal with an awkward radio situation. Piastri's first career win at the Hungarian Grand Prix last year came when the team
ordered a swap
with Norris because of pit strategy. Norris only obeyed after a lengthy wait.
Inconsistent penalties
Once again, F1 is debating whether the rules are enforced consistently.
Piastri argued that slowing up the field before a restart is 'well within the rules,' a tactic he'd used earlier in the same race without incident. 'I don't really get it,' he said.
The stewards ruled that slowing from more than 135mph to 32mph was 'erratic braking' and it forced Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who was second behind Piastri at the time, to take evasive action.
That left Red Bull team principal Christian Horner reviving his complaint that Mercedes' George Russell had deserved a penalty for slowing behind the safety car at the
Canadian Grand Prix
last month. On that occasion, Russell braked and Verstappen, who was second, briefly overtook as he was caught unawares.
Russell went on to win, with Verstappen finishing second. Red Bull's post-race protest interrupted Mercedes' victory celebrations and further strained the relationship between the teams.
'I wasn't surprised to see him get a penalty. That was what you would expect,' Horner said of Piastri's penalty. 'It was probably more surprising that George didn't get one in Montreal, to be honest with you.'
Piastri, too, suggested punishing one incident but not the other seemed inconsistent.
'Going back to Canada, I think you had to evade more there than you did today,' Piastri said. 'So I'm a bit confused, to say the least.'
___
AP Auto Racing Writer Jenna Fryer contributed to this report.
___
AP auto racing:
https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Another luxury car maker is taken down by US tariffs
Car buyers have benefited from car manufacturers relying on incentives to get customers through the door. Consumer sentiment has fallen, but a sale is a sale, and people are taking advantage. "People are buying cars because they think tariffs are coming," one Mazda dealer said. Related: Investment bank says tariffs are devastating these businesses U.S. companies like Ford are in an especially advantageous position because they (usually) import fewer vehicles than their foreign competitors. Nearly half of American drivers cite car expenses as the reason they can't save any money, and the average American spends about 20% of their monthly income on auto loans, fuel, insurance, and maintenance. Most financial experts cap the monthly income you should spend on a vehicle at 15%. But according to a MarketWatch Guides survey, about 10% of drivers say they spend 30% of their monthly income on driving, while another 12% said they "found themselves living paycheck to paycheck due to the financial strain of their cars." Image source:On Monday, Mercedes-Benz said that in the second quarter, unit sales of cars and vans fell 9%, primarily due to tariffs. The luxury German brand delivered 547,100 cars and fans between April and June. Mercedes' Cars unit reported a 9% decline to 453,700 vehicles sold as support in the U.S and China both dried up. North America deliveries fell 14%, while China deliveries declined 19%. "Deliveries to dealerships were carefully calibrated to navigate new global tariff policies, impacting sales of Mercedes-Benz Cars in the U.S. and China in particular," Mercedes said. Related: Toyota makes a tariff move customers are going to hate European sales were up 1%, while sales in Germany rose 7%. Perhaps most concerning was the 18% drop in battery electric sales to 41,900 vehicles. According to a Bernstein note last week viewed by Reuters, Mercedes expects tariffs to play a big part in its performance this quarter. More automotive news: Detroit Big 3 benefit from auto tariffs now, but time is running outPopular Ford newcomer overtakes Jeep in a key areaToyota makes surprising move to beat Tesla in key market Mercedes expects tariffs to shave less than 3% from its second-quarter profit margin. The company seemed relieved about a number that would have been worse without "some de-escalation of tensions between the U.S. and China, some tariff offsets, and timing because tariffs were only ramping up in April." U.S. tariffs forced Mercedes-Benz, and many other automakers both foreign and domestic, to pull their guidance for the year due to lack of visibility. This is a smart move, given President Trump's mercurial decision-making on tariffs. The current pause on non-automotive tariffs is set to end on Wednesday, July 9, but the 25% auto tariffs that have been in place since March never went away. Mercedes operates two manufacturing plants in the U.S., one in Tuscaloosa and the other in Vance, Alabama. The plants produce four of its most popular models, the GLS and GLE SUVs, the GLE Coupe, and the new C-Class. The Tuscaloosa plant was Mercedes' first plant outside of Germany when it was completed in 1995. Today, the 1,000-acre site has over 5 million square feet of manufacturing space, and its facilities employ more than 11,000 Alabamians. Mercedes sold 324,500 passenger cars and 49,600 vans in the U.S. last year, representing 16.4% and 12.2% of sales, respectively. Related: Car buyers should shop these brands for the best tariff deal The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.

The Drive
8 hours ago
- The Drive
Nico Hulkenberg's Underdog Story Is Exactly What F1 Needed
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Fifteen years, 239 lights out, and 42 retirements into his career, Nico Hulkenberg is a Formula 1 podium finisher. As sheets of rain coated the track surface and sprayed visors, the 37-year-old Kick Sauber driver managed to hold onto a third-place position at Sunday's 2025 British Grand Prix. And while the result obviously matters, it's how he scored it that is just as important. Getty/Anadolu If you had told Hulkenberg on Friday that he would be standing on a podium step listening to 'God Save the King' in two days' time, he probably would have laughed. He finished 17th in the second free practice session and 15th in the third. The team's junior driver, Paul Aron, stood in for Hulkenberg in FP1, meaning shortened track time for the No. 27 driver. Saturday's qualifying session didn't bode any better with him saying, 'Quite frankly, we just didn't have the pace to make it through.' Hulkenberg lined up in the 19th grid slot come Sunday's main event; last as Franco Colapinto's Alpine never left the pit lane. But in a rapid recovery drive in the wet, the German driver managed to crawl his way to the top of the leaderboard. By lap seven—after a handful of cars gave up their starting positions in favor of exchanging intermediate tires for slicks on a drying track and a series of rookies slid and crashed—Hulkenberg had secured 10th. That finishing position alone would have been one of his better races of the 2024 season. But he didn't stop there. As the skies opened and lap 14 brought out the safety car, a flash of neon green could be seen near the front of the field in fifth. Max Verstappen's spin on lap 21 allowed for Hulkenberg to clinch fourth, and 14 laps around the track later, he successfully picked off Lance Stroll to take third in a clean lunge forward. He managed to keep Lewis Hamilton, who was aiming to turn 15 Silverstone podiums into 16, and Verstappen at bay in fourth and fifth. Getty Going into the 2025 British Grand Prix weekend, there were clear podium contenders: It was a Ferrari vs. McLaren duel, with a slight chance of Mercedes entering the mix. Hamilton snatched the top spot in the first free practice session of the weekend, his teammate Leclerc went fastest in FP3, and Lando Norris, who won the race, slipped ahead to take FP2. Even as Verstappen's Red Bull showed the unpredictable was possible after a pearl-clutching qualifying lap placed him comfortably on pole, a splash of chartreuse up front wasn't in the cards. While Hulkenberg's race involved a whole lot of luck, it was his patience that paid off, paired with a certain brand of scrappy racing resilience. It was the kind of back-of-the-pack turned podium performance that, like any good underdog story, reminds fans why they fell in love with racing in the first place. Sometimes it's really easy not to be romantic about racing, especially in eras where teams with massive talent pools and budgets dominate the competition. Halfway through the season, weekends can often feel like a drag of laps that blur together into one string of speed. But other times, you sit back, slack-jawed, and ask: 'How can you not be romantic about 20 cars driving in odd shapes?' Sunday was one of those days. Despite a title battle, this season hasn't provided too many starry-eyed moments. A 37-year-old racing driver in an inferior car holding up a third-place trophy is enough to get the waterworks going—even if that trophy is made of Lego bricks. Getty/MI News Although entering the sport through a traditional route, he's had a not-so-traditional career while in the motorsport series: competing for eight teams since 2010, snagging pole position in his rookie year, and winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans driving for Porsche in 2015. Despite proving himself as a racer's racer, Hulkenberg holds some of the less-than-desirable stats in the sport, including the second-most points without a win and the most starts without a win. But he's also shown serious pace this season. He's scored more points (31) than both Red Bulls (29) in the last four races. Hulkenberg pulled out a cinematic moment that rivaled the F1: The Movie storyline and might just prove to movie-turned-grand prix converts that the sport is also capable of tiny, magical moments. Waiting 15 years for those moments—or seeing a recovery drive in the wet once a season—only makes them that much sweeter. Hulkenberg, exhausted and smiling, summed it up nicely: 'One of the best days of my career.' Got a tip? Email us at tips@


CNN
9 hours ago
- CNN
McLaren's Lando Norris speeds to victory at British Grand Prix
McLaren's Lando Norris took his first home victory in a chaotic, dramatic, rain-affected British Grand Prix. Phil Duncan, F1 correspondent for the Press Assocation, talks to CNN Sport's Coy Wire.