McLaren: Piastri in ‘a very strong place’ after Miami display

Oscar Piastri had little to show for his efforts in last Sunday's Miami Grand Prix, but McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella believes the Aussie will have come away from his race weekend “even more conscious” of his strengths as a driver.

Piastri enjoyed a blistering launch off the grid from sixth and then took advantage of the commotion at the first corner triggered by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to audaciously gain three positions on the opening lap.

The McLaren charger eventually got the measure of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to slot into second behind early race leader Max Verstappen, a position he upheld until his pit stop on lap 27 of 57.

Unfortunately, the deployment of the Safety Car two laps later pushed Piastri down to fourth, at which point a thrilling battle with Carlos Sainz ensued until a contact between the two drivers forced the McLaren driver to pit for a new front wing, which dropped him out of the points.

Despite the setback, a highly impressed Stella was full of praise for his driver’s display, and noted how his performance relative to teammate and race winner Lando Norris – especially in qualifying – was better than the theoretical gap between the two drivers given the specification differences of their cars.

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“I think Oscar comes out of this weekend even more conscious of his strengths as a driver,” Stella said, quoted by Motorsport Week.

“We sort of knew already how fast he is on a single lap. Consider that he didn’t have the full package.

“And let me pay proper credit to Oscar. The gap he had to Lando in qualifying is smaller than the difference of the package he had.

“So, he was really pulling off strong performance over a single lap in very difficult conditions like all drivers with Soft tyres.”

Stella suggested that Piastri’s performance will have likely boosted the 23-year-old’s confidence.

“His performance in the race was again very strong,” the Italian added.

“Lando said something really nice before. He said, by looking at Oscar overtaking a Ferrari, he got like, ‘wow, we are actually there today’. So, it was a realization for Lando himself.

“And Oscar could keep a strong pace in the first stint. So, I think he comes out of this weekend with this sort of convictions, which, especially in terms of race pace, is something that we wanted to improve having looked at Japan, having looked at China.

“So, for me, he’s in a very strong place.”

Despite the specification disparity between McLaren’s two cars, with Piastri only benefiting in Miami from half of the upgrades implemented on Norris’ MCL38, Stella noted the Australian driver’s mature reaction to the inequality.

“He also comes off of this race having proven once again how strong a team player he is,” he explained.

“Because clearly, when I told him, Oscar, we are going to give the sidepods and the floor to Lando, he wasn’t the happiest, you know, in the bottom of his heart.

“But at no point, he made this decision difficult. At no point, he said like, ‘oh, but why?’

“You know, he understood the reasoning and he was immediately supportive, like all the entourage around Oscar.

“So, I think he comes away with a lot of positives and the fact that it was the collision with Carlos, actually, I think that was a bit of a… Carlos, he was a little late in braking, he had a bit of an oversteer, contact with Oscar, but I think that was a really racing incident and it doesn’t detract anything of the weekend that Oscar has been able to pull off.”

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