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Nico Rosberg grills Zak Brown for McLaren F1 performance in Italy

Rosberg grills Zak Brown face to face: 'You allowed Leclerc to come by'

2 September at 08:15
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  • Matt Gretton
  • Editor-in-Chief

McLaren are getting a lot of heat over their decision to let Oscar Piastri race against and overtake Lando Norris in the Italian Grand Prix. Norris had a chance to cut his World Championship deficit to Max Verstappen by around 15 points, but the British driver was overtaken by Piastri and then left exposed for Charles Leclerc to take advantage.

Norris did take a chunk out of Verstappen's lead, but it could've been so much more. Norris now has a 62 gap to bridge with just eight Grands Prix and three sprint races remaining. As it stands, Norris will need to take an average of around eight points out of Verstappen's lead per race weekend.

Nico Rosberg, who was part of an intense inter-team battle with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, can't understand the decision McLaren are taking. He believes the Woking-based team need to think smarter about the situation they find themselves in.

Rosberg grilled Zak Brown

When McLaren CEO Zak Brown visited the Sky Sports broadcasting area in the paddock, Rosberg didn't hold back. He said: "Turn four. First, Lando almost spun. That was very close, it won't get closer than that. Then you allowed Leclerc to come through. Maybe that was those 2.6 seconds that cost you the win. Isn't it time to implement some rules here?!".

Brown kept his cool: "That's what we'll discuss next week. We'll look at that. Getting Leclerc into the middle, could we have been able to pull away? It's a fair question," Brown acknowledged.

"It was an aggressive pass, so that's a conversation we'll have. It was a bit nerve-wracking on pit wall. Lando got a bad run out of that corner that opened the door a little bit. It would've been nice to see them run one-two for a little bit longer," Brown added before Rosberg dished out some praise for Piastri.

The 2016 F1 World Champion isn't the only person left baffled by McLaren's decision. Peter Windsor didn't hold back either in his review of the situation in Italy.