Andrea Stella’s hopes for a double championship in 2025 took another blow at the F1 US GP, as Oscar Piastri suffered from a DNF in the Sprint and unusually poor performance during the rest of the weekend.
The McLaren driver managed only sixth on the grid for the Grand Prix proper, and managed to improve only one spot come Sunday. And with Max Verstappen winning the race, his advantage over the Dutchman is just 40 points with five race weekends remaining. Team mate Lando Norris sits between them at 14 points back.
McLaren looking into cause of sudden drop in performance
Team boss Stella did not immediately have an answer for Piastri’s uncharacteristic performance. When asked whether he had any answers, he replied that the team is looking into every possible explanation, including floor setup and Piastri’s driving.
“This is certainly one of the most important points that we need to review, which is the fact that Oscar, in qualifying and in the race, he seemed to have a couple of tenths that he was not able to fully realise and that possibly was available in the car.
“We are actually now checking that we are completely happy with the setup of the car, the setup of the floor, that everything is as intended from a car point of view, and at the same time we’ll be looking at the driving.”
While generally accepted as one of the top drivers on the grid, Stella was able to pin-point some of the issues Piastri faces when driving, and which could hinder his performance.
“I think we know with Oscar that when the conditions are such that we have low grip, you really need to challenge the car, lean on the understeer, oversteer, locking.
“This is an area of his driving that has an opportunity to improve. In Oscar’s standards, this will improve pretty fast. I think today we got quite a lot of information that adds to the information we got yesterday.
“I think already this morning we had some conversations with Oscar as to what we can do to extract more. Sorry about the microphone. I think this is just data to learn and Oscar will learn pretty soon.”
Lack of Sprint running acts as compounding factor
Asked whether the lack of running in the Sprint due to the turn 1 collision prevented McLaren to take any risks with the floor setup, Stella was decisive: “Yes, that’s about it.
“It’s about ride height and it’s about missing references to actually exploit fully what is allowed. In a track like COTA, which we know has caught out some teams in the past, it’s one of those in which it’s very difficult to actually nail the last millimetre if you don’t have references coming from real running.
“Simulation can take you only to a certain point, then you need track data to actually go to the last millimetre.”
