McLaren’s Oscar Piastri gave his chance with a stunning overtake on Charles Leclerc

In the hours since Oscar Piastri’s dramatic victory in the Azerbaijan Formula 1 Grand Prix, much has been made of his thrilling move on Charles Leclerc at the start of lap 20. The Australian driver, with the help of DRS, got to within 20 metres of the Ferrari in front of him before diving in and braking at the last possible moment to complete the overtake.

From there, Piastri never looked back. While Leclerc threatened his lead on a few occasions, the McLaren driver held on for his second Grand Prix victory of the season, a win that propelled the Woking-based team to the top of the F1 standings:

During the FIA ​​post-race press conference, Piastri indicated that he had initiated the overtaking move entirely on his own.

“With that I won the race,” Piastri began when asked about the overtake on Leclerc.

“I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer (Tom Stallard) because I tried to do that in the first stint and completely burned my tyres. So my engineer came on the radio and said ‘let’s not do that again’, basically. And I completely ignored him the next lap and sent him in,” Piastri described.

The McLaren driver noted that he didn’t think patience would be a virtue on Sunday. If he had waited to make a move, hoping Leclerc’s tires would wear out, he might not have had a chance of winning.

“I think at that point, you know, I felt like it was never going to happen to stay at the back and wait for Charles to get demoted. I thought we were just going to secure P2. So yeah, you know, I had a similar opportunity in the first stint,” Piastri continued. “I felt like on lap two or three, I think, I was just inside DRS, but I didn’t take full advantage of that opportunity. And I got to the end of the straight and thought ‘if I had done a few things differently here, maybe I would have had a chance’. So when I had a similar opportunity after the pit stop, I had to take it. And yeah, I wouldn’t have been here without that.”

Although his advice was ignored, things still turned out well for Stallard.

After the race he was allowed to stand on the podium next to Piastri:

Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Not a bad way to end the day.