New Oscar Piastri evidence as untelevised Canadian GP team radio emerges
Oscar Piastri is in his fourth full season with McLaren in 2026
Untelevised team radio footage from the Canadian Grand Prix has revealed how McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was warned about high rear brake temperatures just moments before his collision with Alex Albon.
Piastri was lapped twice en route to 11th place in Montreal last weekend after a costly McLaren strategy mistake.
Oscar Piastri alerted to high rear brake temperatures prior to Canadian GP crash
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The team opted to start both Piastri and teammate Lando Norris on intermediate tyres on a drying track, forcing the pair to pit early to correct the error.
Norris went on to retire with a gearbox problem with Piastri suffering a further blow when he collided with Albon’s Williams at the hairpin.
Piastri, who was forced to pit for a new front wing, was handed a 10-second time penalty for the incident, which forced Albon to retire.
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Untelevised team radio from Sunday’s race has revealed that Piastri was warned about high rear brake temperatures by his race engineer, Tom Stallard, just moments before he made contact with Albon.
It is unclear whether the high temperatures, or steps taken to control them, were a factor in Piastri’s mistake, with brake issues commonplace in Canada due to the large number of braking zones from high speed.
At the exit of the Turns 8/9 chicane, Piastri reported that he was struggling with gearshifts.
Piastri said: “Shifts are still quite bad.”
Stallard replied: “Copy. We are managing brake temperatures at the back.”
Seconds later, Piastri locked up as he launched a move down the inside of Oliver Bearman’s Haas at the Turn 10 hairpin, with the McLaren’s momentum resulting in contact with Albon’s car.
Piastri reported: “Box. I’ve got damage.”
Stallard said: “Box, box.”
Albon’s engineer, James Urwin, commented moments before the incident that he had no access to onboard footage of the number 23 Williams, with Albon the first to alert him to the incident.
The full exchanges went as follows:
Urwin: “I’m blind on an onboard here.”
Albon: “I got hit.”
Urwin: “By a McLaren?”
Albon: “I don’t know, I’m out.”
Piastri later apologised to Albon and Williams, admitting that he was not trying to overtake him at that point.
Asked if he felt a good result was still possible after McLaren abandoned its gamble on intermediates, Piastri said: “I thought it was going to be a bit tricky, but possible.
“The level of grip out there was like nothing I’ve driven before really.
“I just caught myself out and obviously very sorry for Williams and Alex, because I wasn’t trying to overtake him – I just locked up and that was it.
“So one of those days.”
Albon added: “All the cars in front of us were quicker than the midfield.
“We had a tough start. We were surrounded by [cars on] intermediate tyres, so were held up for the first few laps and then we had a bit of an issue at the start anyway.
“We got through eventually and then we were chipping away well against the cars ahead.
“We were just overtaking them one by one. I think we got to a point where we were about to overtake Pierre [Gasly] and then it was really only Franco [Colapinto] and Liam [Lawson] ahead at that point.
“But unfortunately, I think Oscar just tried to kind of follow me through with Ollie, misjudged it and that was it.”
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