‘We had everything to lose’ – Oscar Piastri opens up on ‘painful’ race as he’s forced to settle for second in Monza

Asked whether he should have attempted the one-stop strategy, he said: “In hindsight yes, but everyone’s a legend on Monday after the race or the chequered flag. Today, unfortunately we got it a bit wrong, myself being a big part of that.

“Charles [Leclerc] could try something a bit different as he was going to finish third either way and picked the right gamble today. The mediums were getting destroyed and even the hards on the Red Bull at the start looked pretty dead. My front left was pretty heavily grained, just we didn’t expect it to clear back up again, which it did.

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“I thought [catching Leclerc] would be tough but I thought it would be possible,” he added in a later media session. “With the pace I had at the start, I think I was catching him at two seconds a lap.

“Had a few people that weren’t very helpful – Stroll was driving like he was in his first go-kart race, so that cost a couple of seconds. Just a bit painful, but I think we pretty much needed everything to go right on that last set of hards and it just ultimately wasn’t quite enough.”