McLaren boss Andrea Stella isn't all that surprised by Oscar Piastri's recent performance ramp up, but admits the Australian driver is making F1 "look simple".
Piastri scored his first championship points in F1 at his home race in Melbourne last April, but the 22-year-old has ramped up his performances over the summer, finishing in the top five in Britain and in Hungary and scoring a runner-up spot behind Max Verstappen in Saturday's recent Sprint event at Spa.
Piastri's rivals and F1 fans alike have taken notice, but for Stella his driver's results are simply following the young charger's development.
"Where he is at the moment is part of the gradient that we saw right from the start of testing and the first races," Stella explained, quoted by Speedcafe.
"But you know, when you have a gradient, you very much have an expectation. When you see this expectation becoming material, you’re always a little impressed.
"And the interesting point of Oscar is that he’s making all this look simple."
Indeed, Piastri has adapted to F1's rigors with seemingly little effort, displaying in all circumstances a calm and composed demeanor while holding himself to stringent standards.
Furthermore, the young gun has granted himself the time to learn and develop, embracing mistakes as steppingstones toward improvement.
"He’s making it look simple that, in these conditions, you pit, you lead the race, and you go from inters to dry and you never kind of make a mistake," said Stella, commenting on Piastri's
Run to P2 in Spa's challenging spint race.
"I think this is the most impressive thing that I can witness. And all of this is achieved with a pretty unique approach in terms of how calm he is, and considerate."
While Piastri is a fast learner, Stella suggests that McLaren's own improvements have helped its driver's abundant talent come into its own.
"I’m not sure it has accelerated," Stella said, referring to Piastri's progress.
"I think he just took benefit from the car being more competitive. Therefore, there’s more opportunities to show what he is capable of.
©McLaren
"In fairness, I think this is in line with kind of what we saw at the start.
“It wasn’t easy to get in a McLaren car, which we’ve been here commentating about the characteristic of this car and how much it created issues for drivers, and actually feel like ‘I’m comfortable, I can push – it’s not like the ideal car I would like to drive, but I can adapt and I’m doing to extract what’s available.’
"This was apparent already at the start of the season to us, but less apparent outside just because the car wasn’t very competitive.
"So I will say he’s kind of consolidating the gradient that we saw at the start."
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