Oscar Piastri copped a three-place grid penalty at the Italian Grand Prix for impeding Liam Lawson during Q2, and David Coulthard's absolutely not having it with McLaren's handling of the situation. The Australian was trying to get out of Max Verstappen's way as he exited the pits when he ended up blocking Lawson through the first chicane. That penalty dropped Piastri out of what would've been his third top-three start of the season, sliding him behind both Ferraris and Verstappen.

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Here's where Coulthard gets fired up. The former McLaren driver reckons the pit wall didn't give Piastri anywhere near enough info about what was happening around him. Speaking on F1TV during the session, Coulthard called the communication sloppy and said the engineers really need to do better at getting drivers the full picture. He was pretty clear that this shouldn't be happening in modern Formula 1, especially when you've got multiple cars on push laps heading your way.

Coulthard wasn't letting McLaren off the hook afterwards either, doubling down on Channel 4 to say the team just didn't communicate well enough. He pointed out that Piastri could've cut across the chicane to stay clear, but reckoned the driver never got told properly about both Verstappen and Lawson coming through on quick laps. It was a pretty harsh assessment of McLaren's pit-to-car coordination when it mattered most.

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The stewards did acknowledge in their reasoning that Piastri was only told to watch out for Verstappen and Lawson generally, but apparently didn't know they were on flying laps. Once he clocked that Verstappen was attacking, he got out of the way, but felt Lawson was unavoidable by that point. The stewards actually accepted he had no other realistic option given what he knew at the time, but handed out the standard three-place drop anyway.

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This marks Piastri's third penalty of 2026 after getting done for colliding with Alex Albon in Canada and that infamous pit lane speeding fine in Monaco. It's been a rough year penalty-wise for the McLaren driver, though at least he did get reinstated to fourth in Monaco after Pierre Gasly's penalty was rescinded, so he'll grab some points this weekend. Still, Coulthard's criticism about McLaren's communication is pretty damning stuff.

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