30/06/2025 09:15
Oscar Piastri fumed at Alpine over team radio late in the Austrian
Grand Prix after both Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly adversely
affected his fight with Lando Norris. In the closing stages of the
race at the Red Bull Ring, the Australian was chasing down his
McLaren team-mate, but encountering traffic put pay to his charge.
Firstly, on lap 55 of 70, as Piastri was attempting to lap Yuki
Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto, he got caught up in the back-markers'
battle. After the Red Bull got past the Alpine at Turn 3, the
McLaren driver tried to overtake the Argentine heading down to Turn
4. Either Colapinto was having none of it - despite blue flags
mandating leading cars be let through - or he simply did not see
the MCL39 alongside him, but as he moved over, he pushed Piastri
onto the grass. The seven-time grand prix winner was able to keep
his foot in and avoid a catastrophic race-ending crash, whilst
Colapinto was handed a five-second time penalty by the stewards for
his indiscretion. Then, two laps later, when Piastri found himself
behind the Alpine of Gasly, the Frenchman was less than cooperative
through Turn 1, despite also being a lap down. When he got past the
unaccommodating 29-year-old on the run up to Turn 3, Piastri needed
to vent - in an uncharacteristically irritated manner. The usually
unflappable driver made reference his contentious past with Team
Enstone, frustratedly saying: "Alpine still managed to find a way
to fuck me over all these years later, huh." Piastri was a member
of the team's junior programme but switched to McLaren for his F1
debut in 2023, not before the infamous Piasco , when the team
announced him as their replacement for the departing Fernando
Alonso, only for the Australian to call out the team by publicly
denying he had signed a contract to that effect. The McLaren driver
ultimately finished the Austrian Grand Prix in second to Norris,
2.6 seconds behind his team-mate, who shrunk Piastri's F1 drivers'
championship advantage to 15 points.
