Juan Pablo Montoya says Oscar Piastri has given up after hearing his comments on McLaren team orders

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Oscar Piastri says McLaren’s team orders at the Italian GP may have contributed to his disastrous weekend in Azerbaijan. The erstwhile championship leader made two errors that may be decisive in the F1 title race.

Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Piastri reflected on ‘what happened with the pit stops’ at Monza. He was made to return second place to Norris, who had allowed him to come in first.

An error from the McLaren mechanics left Norris behind his teammate, but Piastri suggested this was ‘part of racing’ before backing down. Two weeks later in Baku, he crashed out twice, once in Q3 and once on the opening lap of the race.

“Ultimately, a combination of quite a few things [led to the mistakes],” he said. “Obviously, the race before that was Monza, which I didn’t feel was a particularly great weekend from my own performance, and there was obviously what happened with the pit stops.”

Oscar Piastri’s relationship with McLaren will ‘sour’, Juan Pablo Montoya says

These comments were put to Juan Pablo Montoya on the AS Colombia YouTube channel. The McLaren legend, who backs the team over their controversial car swap in Italy, fears that Piastri has ‘mentally given up’.

Piastri crashed again at the Brazilian GP, his fourth shunt in five weekends. After the DNF in the Sprint, he only managed fifth in the race after a contentious penalty.

The upshot is that Norris, who had a perfect weekend, is now 24 points clear with three rounds remaining. Montoya has said that the runner-up will leave McLaren next year, and he reiterated those concerns here.

“The problem with saying that is that it means he’s mentally given up,” the Colombian warned.

“Those are the first symptoms that the relationship with McLaren is going to sour. I said it, whoever doesn’t become champion, they’re going to suffer and it’s going to cost them.”

Oscar Piastri will be ‘haunted’ by the mistake he made in F1 title race

Piastri was docked 10 seconds for causing a collision after attempting a move on Kimi Antonelli at an early safety car restart. He made contact with the Mercedes driver, who in turn took Charles Leclerc out of the race.

Some feel that Piastri made a racer’s move, while the driver himself said he had no regrets. He told Sky Sports that ‘I had a very clear opportunity and I went for it’.

However, Montoya thinks misjudgements like this will eventually ‘haunt’ Piastri. He apparently has no right to complain about a lack of fairness.

“Those moves, in the long run, will come back to haunt him someday,” Montoya said. “He’ll cry about how unfair people were when he had a chance to be champion and someone ruined it for him.

“What I’m saying might be controversial, but that’s what’s right.”