The radio message Piastri “ignored” to win Baku’s three-way fight thriller

After the McLaren team orders controversy that clouded his first Grand Prix victory in Hungary, Oscar Piastri seized his second with a superb pass on Charles Leclerc during a thrilling race on the streets of Azerbaijan. His ambush of the polesitter's Ferrari was made all the more dramatic for a radio message that went unheeded shortly beforehand

Race engineer Tom Stallard provided Oscar Piastri with some sage advice at the start of his hard-tyre stint, based on the findings of his discarded medium-compound Pirelli tyres. Piastri, who had been stuck in Charles Leclerc’s wake among the opening quintet of tours around the streets of Baku, was about to find himself behind once again when the Ferrari driver called in a lap later than the Australian’s 15th-lap service.

“The first stint, you damaged the tyres attacking Leclerc,” Stallard informed his young charge. “Let’s be smart here.”

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Author Jake Boxall-Legge

Jake studied engineering at university, as his original ambition was to design racing cars. He was bad at that, and thus decided to write about them instead with an equally limited skillset. The above article is a demonstration of that. In his spare time, Jake enjoys people, places, and things.