McLaren address Oscar Piastri team radio 'anger'

Andrea Stella has moved quickly to defuse the fallout from Oscar Piastri's furious team radio messages during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The McLaren team principal confirmed his driver clarified the outburst shortly after the race and that there is "absolutely no problem" within the team.

Piastri, who took the lead from polesitter Lando Norris in the early laps at the Hungaroring, was left incandescent after a collision with lapped Williams driver Carlos Sainz while the Spaniard battled Fernando Alonso for position cost him crucial time.

Having earned the undercut, which is notoriously powerful in Budapest, the nine-time grand prix winner's delay allowed Norris to pit and emerge ahead, despite being at the strategic disadvantage.

The Australian's radio messages left little to the imagination. "Is he ******* stupid or what? Get out of the ******* way, you idiot! Oh my god," Piastri raged after the contact with Sainz on Lap 38.

He then turned his frustration towards his own pit wall: "Mate, just don't ******* talk to me now. Nice of you guys to factor that one in, by the way. Thanks."

It was a bitter pill for Piastri, who later retired from second place on Lap 56 with a suspected gearbox failure.

Meanwhile, the stewards found Sainz wholly responsible for the collision and handed him a five-second time penalty.

Speaking after the race, Stella offered a detailed and measured account of events, stressing that neither the team's strategy nor the wheel-to-wheel racing between its two drivers was to blame for Piastri losing the lead.

"First of all, let me say that immediately after the race, Oscar clarified that his comment was a comment made in anger, and that what happened today, in terms of how the race unfolded, the competition between the two McLaren drivers was all fair, and it was great racing," Stella said to media, including RacingNews365.

"So from this point of view, I think we are pretty happy with the racing that we have seen; the drivers had their opportunities in corners one and two.

"I'm very pleased with the respectful approach that they had to each other, staying away from contact, and ultimately Oscar took the lead because he judged the grip in corner two better than Lando.

"From there, Oscar had his own opportunities of winning the race, leading the race. At some stage, we needed to pit to cover Hamilton because here you can't really afford to give any positional advantage."

Stella explained how the chain of events conspired against Piastri, pointing to a malfunction with the automated blue flag system that made life harder for backmarkers throughout the 70-lap race.

"And then there were a couple of unfortunate episodes," he stated. "Obviously, the most important is the fact that Oscar had a collision with a backmarker."

"At the time, my understanding is that the blue panels were not working, so perhaps today was more difficult than normal for the backmarkers to appreciate what was happening in the mirrors.

"And Carlos is a very fair, very correct driver, so I'm sure that that was absolutely unintentional, but a bit of a shame for Oscar. He lost seconds, and at the same time, once Lando was released, then his pace was simply mega, and I think he found half a second per lap, and this pace meant that Lando could pit [and come out] ahead of Oscar.

"So for me, this is just great racing, sophisticated racing, in a way. And the good news is that the two McLaren drivers were in contention for a victory or a podium.

"So that's certainly not a case [that he was put at a disadvantage from the timing of the pit stops]. I think Oscar understood it immediately. It's absolutely understandable that when you lead the race for almost half [of it], and then you see yourself losing the lead because of an episode with a backmarker, then you know you may have a moment and make a comment in anger.

"But there's absolutely no problem from this point of view."