Oscar Piastri’s father has dismissed persistent conspiracy theories suggesting his son, Oscar Piastri, is being intentionally disadvantaged by McLaren to the benefit of his British teammate Lando Norris.
The father of the 24-year-old Australian driver addressed the growing speculation in an exclusive interview with Code Sports, following a season of intense scrutiny over McLaren’s management of their two star drivers.
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Accusations that the British-based team favours teammate Lando Norris have circulated on social media for months, intensified by strategic errors that appeared to have consistently cost Piastri more than Norris.
The fervour reached a peak last week when McLaren’s decision not to pit Piastri under a safety car badly damanged his bid for a drivers’ title and led to Senator Matt Canavan raising the issue of McLaren bias in Senate Estimates.
However, speaking to Code Sports ahead of the F1 season finale in Abu Dhabi, Chris Piastri rejected the suggestion of any orchestrated campaign against his son.
He maintained that while the team’s decisions have occasionally been debated, there is no evidence of intentional bias from the Woking garage.
“There’s been a couple of obvious ones (strategic mistakes) that have been sort of reported on to death — Monza being the standout — but I don’t sort of buy into it too much,” Chris said.
“From Oscar’s side of things, there’s just been a few races where they sort of got away from him. Baku obviously was a big one but also Austin and Mexico where he just struggled for pace.
“There’s absolutely nothing behind the scenes there. I don’t think there’s anything I would put my finger on.
“If there was something there then the best way to fight it is just win the races, and put it beyond doubt, so that if there is any little conscious or unconscious bias within the team that it doesn’t matter, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
Chris Piastri declared if his son misses out on winning the drivers’ championship on Monday morning (AEST) to either Norris or Max Verstappen, he won’t be looking to blame anyone else.
“He certainly won’t buy into any angle that somehow he was robbed by the team of the championship. I don’t think that’s true anyway,” Piastri said.
You can follow the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix live with news.com.au’s blog on the season finale starting late on Sunday night.
Read Chris Piastri’s full interview with Code Sports here.
