Andrea Stella is confident that Oscar Piastri will “come back stronger” following his Lap 1 crash out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, a weekend in which the other McLaren car of Lando Norris was again hit by a pit stop issue en route to a final result of P7.
After a tough Qualifying for the papaya squad on Saturday – in which Piastri hit the wall in Q3 while Norris failed to reach higher than P7 on the grid – the team also faced a difficult day as soon as the lights went out in Baku on Sunday.
Piastri’s troubles continued as the Australian made a jump start before his car went into anti-stall, dropping him to the back of the field as well as earning him a five-second time penalty. But the championship leader’s race soon came to an end when he locked up into Turn 5 and hit the barriers, making him the only driver to retire from the Grand Prix.
Reflecting on the events of the weekend after the race, McLaren Team Principal Stella suggested that Piastri’s record across past categories shows his ability to bounce back and learn quickly from his mistakes.
“These errors that we’ve seen on Oscar’s side, they are definitely uncharacteristic,” Stella explained. “Oscar has been the most solid driver in the 2025 campaign so far, and from what I could see, even with multi champion drivers, sometimes you have a weekend in which it’s all about learning.
“And I think Oscar concentrated some learning opportunities in this weekend, despite his will. The start, I think it’s just for an excess of eagerness. I’m sure we have seen this now, and we won’t see this anymore.
“And in terms of the lock-up, similar to yesterday, he just misjudged the level of grip available. Perhaps this was compounded with a slow start, with a false start. We don’t know yet.
“But I think one of the strongest features of Oscar is how rapidly he learns, how rapidly he improves, and now he can come back stronger. That’s why he’s been so successful in every category, and I think that’s exactly what will happen in his Formula 1 career, and we will see it in the remainder of the season.”
On the other side of the garage, Norris struggled to overtake the cars ahead from his P7 starting slot and also found himself in traffic after a slow pit stop – his second in as many races.
While this meant that the Briton was unable to capitalise as greatly on Piastri’s retirement in terms of the championship – with the gap only slightly reduced to 25 points – he insisted that the race was “not a missed opportunity”. From Stella’s side, the team boss felt that the MCL39 did not have enough pace for Norris to gain any further positions.
“I think on Lando’s side, we were hoping to have a car that was in condition to overtake, in fairness, but the reality today is that the car wasn’t fast enough to stay close to the car ahead out of last corner to then be able to overtake down the straight,” said Stella.
“This means that Lando spent the entire race in traffic, despite feeling that the car had more to offer. Overall I think I’ve said yesterday that these kind of circuits don’t seem to suit our car very well in terms of its strengths, but at the same time, definitely there was more available in the car that yesterday in Qualifying and today in the race we did not exploit.”
Reflecting further on Norris’ performance, Stella added: “I think Lando today had a strong race. He raced to the limit of the potential that was available in the car. I think no other driver in Lando’s car could have scored more.
“If anything, the responsibility to try and extract more performance today or more points may lie more on the team’s side, because with a fast, or the fastest, pit stop we could have given Lando the opportunity for us to attack Liam Lawson. But from a driving point of view, we are completely, completely happy that Lando has delivered to the limit of what was available today in the car.”
As such, Stella admits that pit stops will be one of the squad’s areas for improvement going forward as the potential impact of mistakes heightens entering into the final seven Grands Prix of the campaign, with the team boss stating that Baku winner Max Verstappen is “in the contention for the Drivers’ Championship”.
“We need to keep working, because there’s some important performance that is available through pit stops, and we have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter,” Stella conceded. “So what is the impact of a pit stop now? It gets more and more important.
“So definitely, for the remainder of the season, and also thinking about next year’s car, there’s work to do.”
