Oscar Piastri was looking firmly in contention for victory in Sunday's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, until a crucial decision by the McLaren team dropped him out of the running.
Piastri had a quiet start to the race having lined up in fifth place, before getting the better of Max Verstappen through Stowe on lap 17. After that, the rain started to fall and the McLarens were suddenly looking best on track.
Lando Norris took the lead of the race on lap 20, and at the same time Piastri passed both Mercedes cars of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton to move into second place.
None of the leading cars pitting for intermediate tyres at this point, but a second heavier and more prolonged period of rain hit the circuit on lap 25 triggering an immediate response from Verstappen and Carlos Sainz.
Norris was in next time by, along with Russell and Hamilton who lost time double stacking. McLaren avoided that problem by keeping Piastri out for another lap, but the conditions deteriorated quicker than expected.
By the time Piastri had tip-toed round the increasingly wet circuit and pitted for inters, he had dropped 18s behind Hamilton - practically the full time of an extra pit stop. Not double staking had clearly been a mistake.
“I think to be honest that decision in that race is probably the hardest call you’re ever going to have in motor racing," Piastri told the media in the paddock after the race when asked about that call by the McLaren pit wall.
“You’ve got two cars, one two, separated by half a second with rain coming down. I don’t think it gets any harder than that," he said, insisting that it had been a joint call between himself and the team.
He said that he had known it was a bad decision "as soon as I went past pit entry", adding: "The last couple of corners had been very, very tough.
"I could see on my dash, that Lando was like five seconds behind me when I pitted, so I knew I was in a lot of trouble then.
“The conditions were getting trickier, but it was very, very hard to judge. It was only really half of the track that was really difficult until the lap that I stayed out, and then the whole track became difficult.
"[I was] obviously frustrated at that point, but I knew that there was rain still coming. After the first couple of laps, I could see that the cars ahead had clearly used up their inters a lot in the first couple of laps, so I was actually optimistic.
“But then I kind of hit the same walls as everyone else," he admitted. "I knew we would have more chances later in the race with getting back onto the slicks, the choice of tyres we had.
"I knew there’d be more opportunities, so I just tried to give ourselves the best chance of still trying to win," he said. He was able to pass Sainz for position and gained another place when Russell retired, but that was it.
However the decision to switch to medium tyres for his final stint saw him set fastest laps, but he wasn't able to catch the cars ahead after his precipitous drop.
“The decision on my side to put a medium on was the right call I think we were the quickest at the end," he noted. “Every other decision we absolutely nailed in that race.
"It's just a shame that we weren't in a better position in the middle of the race," he acknowledged. "Clearly some things we need to review. I think double stacking would have been the better call, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
"We just need to see if we had any information that told us that was going to be a better choice. But obviously it's a little bit painful given the gap to Lewis," he said of his fall from second to sixth after that pit stop.
As a result of today's race, Piastri is now fifth in the drivers' championship with 124 points. The combined efforts of the McLaren drivers have moved McLaren to within seven points of Ferrari for P2 in the constructors' standings.
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