Oscar Piastri launches f-word tirade at former F1 team

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.