Andrea Stella has discovered a new Oscar Piastri ‘red flag’ after his United States GP struggles

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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri will be hoping to prove that the United States Grand Prix was only a blip in his pursuit of winning his first Formula 1 championship.

Max Verstappen brought himself right back into contention at the United States Grand Prix, winning both races and reducing Oscar Piastri’s lead in the drivers’ championship by 23 points.

Piastri crashed out of the Sprint Race after setting off a chain reaction at the first corner that also saw his McLaren teammate Lando Norris fail to complete the opening lap.

Norris recovered to finish second in Sunday’s race, but Piastri’s pace never returned, and despite Lewis Hamilton suffering a late failure, the Australian had to settle for fifth.

Piastri won the Dutch Grand Prix, but since then, he’s failed to beat Norris or Verstappen at any of the next three races.

Team principal Andrea Stella has a dilemma on his hands, knowing that he may need to prioritise either Piastri or Norris to avoid Verstappen winning a fifth consecutive championship.

Stella admitted McLaren ‘need to do’ a better job helping Piastri extract more pace out of the car on weekends like the one in Austin.

However, journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm has suggested that a new ‘red flag’ has emerged for the team principal to deal with after the race in Austin.

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Oscar Piastri’s performance at a low-grip F1 circuit is a new ‘red flag’ for McLaren

Mitchell-Malm was speaking about Piastri’s struggles at the Circuit of the Americas on The Race F1 Podcast and said: “Austin was the first time I think there was like a real red flag in terms of his own overall pace and performance.

“That’s why he was saying at the end of the weekend, he’s not really worried about where Verstappen’s points gap got down to, it’s more trying to understand why he was so poor.

“One thing that Andrea Stella revealed after the race, when I asked him about what clues there were in terms of why Oscar struggled this weekend, I’ve not heard this before, but Stella said that Piastri struggles when the track’s low grip and you really need to force it in terms of the front end.

“But also, pushing both axles without locking them in such low grip conditions, and that is an area where Piastri still has room to improve.

“They expect him to improve quite quickly because that’s historically been the trend, and when he does have weaknesses or opportunities to get better, as Stella likes to put them. He acts on them quite quickly, and there would obviously have been good data from the Grand Prix, having missed it from the Sprint.

“Which was another factor in Piastri’s weekend. He needed a weekend like we’ve seen a few times this year, where he just chips away at it through practice and by Q2 and Q3, he’s exactly where he needs to be.

“But he didn’t have that trajectory through the weekend because it was a Sprint weekend and then obviously he made his own error at the start of the Sprint.”

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Andrea Stella admits the Mexican Grand Prix presents a ‘different challenge’ for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris

The upcoming Mexico City Grand Prix hasn’t been Piastri’s best circuit, having finished eighth on both of his previous visits.

However, throughout the season, the 24-year-old has demonstrated how much progress he’s made compared to last year and has won at races where previously he was a step behind Norris.

Looking ahead of the event in McLaren’s official pre-race preview, Stella said: “After an intense US Grand Prix weekend, we now look ahead to the second half of this busy double header.

“The unique nature of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, with its technical and fast sections, always makes for good racing.

“Additionally, the high altitude of Mexico City provides different challenges for the teams.”

Guenther Steiner is worried Piastri has lost faith in McLaren in the run-in to the end of the season.

Several decisions have seemingly favoured Norris, although it’ll be interesting to see how the team reacts to their driver’s collision in the Sprint Race at COTA, with Martin Brundle blaming Piastri for the incident.