Yesterday at 06:30
Oscar Piastri says he would have "no regrets" if he were to lose
the F1 drivers' title to Lando Norris as a result of his decision
to follow team orders in the Italian Grand Prix. With both
McLarens opting to run long and fit the soft tyres at Monza,
Piastri, from second, was pitted first to cover against Charles
Leclerc behind, which was achieved. However, when Norris stopped
next time around, he suffered a slow stop on the front-left, and
dropped behind the Australian as long-time leader Max Verstappen
reassumed his lead to run ahead of Piastri and Norris. Had the cars
finished in this order, Piastri would have earned 18 points to
Norris's 15, extending his points lead to 37 over his team-mate,
but following a McLaren request, Piastri ceded position to Norris.
This meant the gap was actually trimmed to 31 with a six-point
swing in Norris's favour, with the title being decided by six
points or fewer 26 times in the 75 seasons since the world
championship was formed in 1950. The last was Nico Rosberg beating
Lewis Hamilton by five points in 2016, but Piastri has no doubts he
made the right decision. "I wouldn't regret it, no," Piastri told
media, including RacingNews365. "It was a fair decision. Lando was
ahead the whole race, and it wasn't through any fault of his own
[that he dropped behind]. "For me, that's fine. Ultimately,
whoever wins the championship wants to have won it as much as they
can through their own performances and things they can control;
this wasn't one of those things. "Lando qualified ahead, was ahead
the whole race, and lost that spot through no fault of his own. I
said what I had to say on the radio. "And once I got the second
request, then I'm not going to go against the team. "There are a
lot of people to protect and a culture to protect outside of just
Lando and me, and ultimately, that's a very important thing going
forward."
