Australian<\/a> did on the 49th lap of 53 at Monza\u2019s Temple of Speed.<\/p>\nPiastri was bitterly disappointed with the decision, saying on the radio: \u201cWe said that a slow pit stop was part of racing so I don\u2019t really get what changed here but I will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen, who crossed the line a commanding 19.2 seconds clear of Norris to claim his first triumph since winning in Imola on May 18, expressed his surprise at McLaren\u2019s move, laughing when he had been informed of the swap.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because of a slow pit stop?\u201d he chuckled when told that Norris and Piastri had traded positions, with the former reducing his team-mate\u2019s championship advantage from 34 points to 31 heading into the concluding eight rounds.<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari, one place ahead of Mercedes\u2019 George Russell.<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton made up four places from 10th \u2013 after he served a five-place grid penalty \u2013 to finish sixth.<\/p>\n
A week on from his race-ending engine failure at the Dutch Grand Prix, which put him on the backfoot to win his maiden world crown, Norris escaped from a mistake-fuelled qualifying session to join pole-sitter Verstappen on the front row, with Piastri a place back.<\/p>\n
Norris has attracted criticism for a series of poor getaways over the past 18 months, but here he was soon alongside Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull on the 200mph drag to the Variante del Rettifilo.<\/p>\n
Verstappen held his line and, when the tarmac narrowed, Norris dropped two wheels on to the grass but carried enough momentum to remain on level terms under braking for the chicane.<\/p>\n
Norris\u2019 papaya-coloured McLaren occupied the inside line and Verstappen took to the escape road before re-joining the track and retaining his lead. Cue the complaints from inside Norris\u2019 crash helmet.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, what the f***,\u201d said Norris. \u201cWhat is this idiot doing? Come on. He\u2019s put me on the grass and then he\u2019s just cut the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen protested his innocence, claiming Norris went deep on his brakes to force him off the road, but the four-time world champion\u2019s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, instructed his driver to concede the position and avoid a possible stewards\u2019 investigation.<\/p>\n
At the start of the second lap, Verstappen moved over to his right on the pit straight and Norris assumed the lead. Piastri had dropped behind Leclerc and, for a brief moment, the Englishman might have dreamt of taking 12 points out of his rival\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n
But Verstappen was not ready to let Norris off the hook and at the start of the fourth lap he latched on to the tow off the McLaren man\u2019s car before moving to the outside under braking for the first chicane.<\/p>\n
Verstappen never looked back to claim Red Bull\u2019s first grand prix triumph of the post-Christian Horner era, but McLaren\u2019s race would unravel on the 47th lap when Norris came in for his one and only stop.<\/p>\n
A sticky front-left tyre meant Norris was stationary for 5.9 seconds and that allowed Piastri, who by now had got ahead of Leclerc and stopped a lap earlier that Norris, to move up to second, only for McLaren to intervene.<\/p>\n
\u201cOscar, I appreciate that was painful, but I think we did the right thing,\u201d said Piastri\u2019s race engineer, Tom Stallard.<\/p>\n
Commenting afterwards, the Australian said with a wry smile: \u201cA little incident at the end, but it was okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his poor pit stop, Norris said: \u201cI felt like I was there for quite a long time, but every now and then we make mistakes and today was one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-405497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115163612579220267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}