Andrea Stella admits Oscar Piastri hasn’t ‘elevated his game’ like Lando Norris at McLaren

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Oscar Piastri won four of the first six races at the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season. As Andrea Stella explains, Lando Norris wasn’t reaching his ‘maximum potential’ in this period.

It may seem as if McLaren are devaluing Piastri’s achievements by talking about Norris’ struggles, but now it’s the Australian who appears uncomfortable in the car.

Norris started to find form from around Monaco onwards. His win in the principality launched a run of four victories in seven Grands Prix before the summer break.

Still, Piastri was right there with him. He followed Norris home in three of those races and won two for himself.

For the most part, the two drivers were extremely close on outright pace for the first two-thirds of the season. But Norris has been significantly quicker than Piastri of late, prompting a 58-point swing in the title race.

Andrea Stella says there’s a ‘technical’ explanation for Oscar Piastri slump

Speaking on F1TV’s Weekend Warm-Up show at the Qatar Grand Prix, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella broke the season down. He admits that his drivers were ‘surprised’ by Max Verstappen’s surge.

Verstappen, 104 points off after the Dutch GP in late August, is now level on points with Piastri and just 24 behind Norris. His win in Vegas was his sixth of the season, putting him just one behind the McLaren duo.

While Norris ‘elevated his game’ in response, Piastri has lost his ‘edge’ due to technical flaws in his driving.

“There was an initial phase in which Lando, if anything, was hesitating the most in exploiting his maximum potential,” Stella explained. “Part of it had to do with the behaviour of the car.

“We introduced some changes, especially in the area of the front suspension, to connect Lando with the front tyres a bit more, and this seems to have worked very well.

Finish the sentence: In 2027, Oscar Piastri will be driving for…

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“Then we had a second phase in which both our drivers were doing very well, and if anything, it was Red Bull and Max that hesitated, Max had a couple of difficult races.

“Then we end up in a third phase in which Red Bull become very competitive, Max hits top form and our two drivers are a little surprised by that. We didn’t have great races, especially Baku.

“Max and Lando have elevated their game, while Oscar faced a few circuits in which the car needed to be driven a certain way. There were circuits where you have to slide the rear to get rotation, you have to use the brakes to generate this little amount of rear locking that helps the front.

“This is something we are still working on with Oscar in terms of making it a natural way of driving. This, combined with the fact that Lando and Max in particular elevated the game, looked like Oscar took a step back.

“I think this is a combination of technical reasons above all – initially, in the first part of the season for Lando, it was mainly technical reasons that put Lando in a little bit of difficulty. The game is so competitive now that as soon as you lose a little bit of the edge, you lose four or five positions.”

The Mark Webber/McLaren talks that could determine Oscar Piastri’s future

Some staff at rival team Mercedes feel Piastri is already out of the title race. Indeed, it’s telling that the narrative around Verstappen is so different even though they enter the weekend with the same number of points.

The flowing nature of the Qatar circuit may better suit Piastri’s driving style. The 24-year-old must draw additional motivation from being written off.

Manager Mark Webber is planning ‘tough’ talks with McLaren over the winter break. He reportedly wants to rebuild Piastri’s ‘confidence’ in the team heading into 2026.

And if it doesn’t return, then Piastri’s camp may begin to think about seats elsewhere.