“Piastri has convinced McLaren about his ultimate potential
MARK HUGHES
McLaren’s announcement at Suzuka that it had extended Oscar Piastri’s contract to the end of 2026 was no great surprise given the 22-yearold’s enormously promising rookie season. He has been a much closer match to the team’s established star Lando Norris than Daniel Ricciardo had managed in the previous two years. On occasion, such as at Spa, he has even out-performed him. But it’s the manner in which he has conducted himself which has convinced McLaren, specifically its team principal Andrea Stella, about his ultimate potential.
It’s not just Piastri’s natural speed, but the way in which he fits with the culture Stella is engendering, which is key. What does that mean? To get that requires an understanding of Stella himself. He made his name at Ferrari as a performance engineer for Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen before becoming Fernando Alonso’s race engineer there. He followed Alonso to McLaren where he took on a more senior engineering role in which he deployed a calm, creative intelligence made all the more effective by a quietly warm and friendly personality. He has fantastic people skills and has been a key part in changing what was sometimes a cold and paranoid environment into a much warmer, more open place. Zak Brown has understood this and given him ever-greater responsibility until he now effectively runs the shop, leaving Brown to attend to business.