McLaren: Piastri making F1 ‘look simple’

Oscar Piastri is making the adaptation to F1 “look simple” according to McLaren team boss Andrea Stella.

Piastri has quickly emerged as a rising star in F1, matching his highly rated team-mate Lando Norris.

The Australian was unfortunate not to score a maiden podium at the British Grand Prix, before leading the F1 Sprint in Belgium and recording second in the Saturday afternoon encounter behind Max Verstappen.

Those headline performances have seen the world take notice, though according to Stella, were largely expected.

“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 said of Piastri’s development.

“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.”

Piastri has proven unflappable, taking the conjecture that surrounded him a year ago in his stride and quickly adapted to the rigours that come with being an F1 driver.

While hard on himself, he’s also afforded himself time to develop and make mistakes.

The result has been a composed performance devoid of significant errors.

“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,” Stella noted of the performance delivered by Piastri in the Belgian F1 Sprint.

“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.”

The jump to F1 is far from simple, with Liam Lawson highlighting the gulf to Formula 2, highlighting the difficulty of what Piastri has done.

Though McLaren is impressed with Piastri’s development and performances, that isn’t to say he has exceeded expectations.

Instead, Stella suggests the upturn in McLaren’s performances of late has served simply to highlight what the team has known for some time.

“I’m not sure it has accelerated,” Stella said when asked by Speedcafe.

“I think he just took benefit from the car being more competitive. Therefore, there’s more opportunities to show what he is capable of.

“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.”