McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella reacted to Oscar Piastri’s strong drive as the Australian finished P4 at the 2026 F1 Austrian GP last Sunday.
On Saturday, the nine-time race winner ended up 7th in qualifying, finishing up 0.009s slower than teammate Lando Norris. There had been nothing between the pair all through practice, and it continued into Saturday afternoon.
At the start of the race on Sunday, Piastri overtook his stablemate at turn 4 to take 6th place. Thanks to the large deg suffered by Ferrari, he would take full advantage to finish 4th behind the very dominant top 3 of Russell, Verstappen and Antonelli. He ended up 10s and three places ahead of car #1.
At the previous round in Barcelona-Catalunya, it was an extremely difficult day for Oscar Piastri. Massive struggles with pace and tyre degradation in sweltering conditions saw him limp to a 5th place finish, 35s behind Lando Norris, who ended up on the rostrum.
After difficulties with tyre management in 2023 and 2024, there was a vast improvement last year as he went close to the title. Unfortunately for him, his driving style struggles on low grip surfaces did continue, losing big points to his teammate and Max Verstappen in Austin and Mexico.
Ultimately, his weekend at the Red Bull Ring was an important step for Oscar Piastri. With these new cars having a lot less downforce than in 2025, Barcelona suggested work on tyre management needed to be done again, alongside driving adaptions on low grip tracks.
Austria had very warm weather once more. There was not a lot of grip, and tyre overheating and degradation was significant. Lock-ups, snaps and sliding was a common theme.
Andrea Stella on the progress of Oscar Piastri at the 2026 F1 Austrian GP
Speaking about his driver’s race in a print media session, the Italian engineer turned Team Principal reflected on Piastri’s highs and lows so far this season.
Andrea Stella credited the driver of car #81 and his side of the garage for the work put in to understand why the 2026 F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP was so difficult.
“I think Oscar, if anything, like the whole team, I would say, he’s had a bit of up and down.
“He’s had some strong races, like if you remember Japan, it was a very strong race with a McLaren being in contention for the lead in the race.
“I think what we saw this season with Oscar is that with the cars having overall less grip and with some of the races having high tyre degradation, we know that in these conditions, as we saw the same last year, Oscar has to make some adaptations in his driving style because if he adopts his natural driving style, he tends to lose some performance.
“So I’m actually extremely pleased with how much Oscar cashed in all the learning and the work that was done as a team. Team Oscar, Oscar’s engineers, Oscar himself, there was an important analysis and activity.
“We understood a few clues of driving in these low grip conditions and today, and the whole weekend, Oscar got in the cockpit and he did it. So he deserves this strong weekend.
“I think for Oscar, if anything, this is the main opportunity for a driver that is already operating at a very high level just to be fast and consistent in low grip when the car slides a lot.
“And I think it’s very encouraging what he has achieved this weekend.”
