A McLaren 1-2, not to mention a historic home win, fell by the wayside following a mistake by Oscar Piastri.

Shadowing his teammate, and free to race, the Australian ran wide at Turn 12 on Lap 44, compounding the error by overshooting the subsequent corner, thus allowing Max Verstappen, and many others, to pass whilst his McLaren teammate disappeared up the road.

Though he was able to make up a number of positions and finish in the points, it was little reward for the driver who appeared to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

On course for a possible home win, the first for an Australian since the formation of the Formula One World Championship, the groans of the partisan crowd could be heard over the sound - such as it is - of the engines.

"It's obviously pretty disappointing at the moment," he told reporters post-race. "I feel like for every lap, apart from one, I drove an incredibly strong race and it's just a shame to not have the result to show for it.

"I don't have anyone to blame but myself," he added. "I've felt better. I'm just disappointed, obviously. I honestly don't know what to say, really. Obviously, a mistake from myself but I think for it to have the consequences that it did were a little bit unfortunate.

I've only got myself to blame," he admitted. "I tried to push too much in those conditions. But the other 56 and three-quarter laps were very strong.

"I'm obviously very disappointed, but I think there are a lot of positives to take."

Having lost out to Verstappen on the opening lap, the McLaren driver retook the position on Lap 17 when the Dutchman made a mistake.

Closing on his teammate, Piastri was initially asked to hold station before being given the nod to battle Norris for the lead.

Asked why, despite the pre-race promise that its drivers were free to race, the team, albeit temporarily, went back on its promise, Andrea Stella explained: "At one stage, we had to go relatively soon through some backmarkers, while the cars were close together and the conditions on track were still a little tricky with Intermediates that were running down a bit in terms of their rubber on. And at the same time, we were receiving some updates on the weather forecast.

"So, we had the going through the backmarkers and the update on the weather forecast that led us to close for a short period of time the internal racing between our two drivers until we had clarity as to the weather prediction, what this meant for how we should have used the tyres, and then until we had closed the matter of overtaking the backmarkers.

"Once this was completed and the weather was assessed, then we reopened the racing.

"The drivers were aware when we gave the team order to hold positions," he insisted, "and then they were aware when we told them to be free to race.

"In the meantime, I left to review the communications with the drivers, but for drivers, we didn't even know ourselves how long this period would have been until the weather forecast had become a little clearer. So, we just tried to keep this period as short as possible, and the drivers know that this is the case, so we don't want to make it unnecessarily long."

According to the Italian, Piastri's subsequent error vindica\ted the team's original order.

"I think in terms of retaining a consistent pace at that stage of the races, it was difficult, which is also one of the reasons why we wanted to pause the internal competition for a few laps, because both drivers were making little mistakes here and there. I think as soon as you were putting the tyres on a slightly more wet portion, then you may have a sudden oversteer, you may have a little lock-up because the front left was already quite worn," he said.

"So I don't know exactly what kind of issues he might have had in terms of pace in this phase of the race, but I suspect that it might have to do with these little issues that pushing at that level in those conditions, I've seen regularly on either of the drivers."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Albert Park here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 1 hour ago

"Stella and his BS. Piastri had closed rapidly on Norris and was within striking distance and they knew it. That allowed Norris to open up a two second lead. In order to protect Norris they had invoked team orders after supposedly stating that they are free to race!!! What happened was that Piastri subsequently lost his outstanding rhythm. He stated to Stallard that he was faster. I think that the writing is on the wall...and we are are only in race one of twenty four. I am quite disgusted really. Conditions were atrocious for all drivers and to add to that by putting 'the fix' in was a demonstration of pure bias. I think that the most exciting bit of racing came on the last lap between Piastri and Hamilton. What a demonstration of class driving that was. "

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Piastri rues costly error

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