McLaren boss Andrea Stella has denied Oscar Piastri is feeling the pressure of a Formula 1 title fight, claiming Michael Schumacher even had weekends like the Australian did at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Piastri leads championship rival and McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by 25 points with seven rounds left this year, a gap which stood at 31 until his disastrous Baku weekend.
The 24-year-old retired on lap one after locking up into the Turn 5 barrier, having already had a poor start dropping to last as he tried to correct a jumping of the lights by suddenly stopping.
It capped off a messy weekend for Piastri, who only qualified ninth on Saturday after misjudging his braking straight into the Turn 3 wall – while Friday practice also saw him clip Turn 15.
But Stella left Baku with no worries about Piastri, as he’s seen many F1 greats have poor weekends, having previously worked with Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso as an engineer at Ferrari.
“I’ve worked with multi-champion drivers and in a season, every season, even the most dominant, even by one of the best drivers in the history of Formula 1, like Michael Schumacher, I have seen events like this,” said Stella.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
“The most you take away is the learning because things become, for some reasons, difficult – and as soon as you misjudge the grip available, you get highly punished.
“So, a one-off for what has been probably the most solid driver in this season. A one-off weekend in which things don’t go your way and you ultimately have a loss to review is no surprise, no exception that we should be worried about, because this has happened to pretty much all champions – even the ones with the best track record.”
Piastri’s mistake-riddled weekend caught a lot by surprise given the championship leader has been impressively calm and measured during crunch-time moments this year.
His only other blip this season has been the Melbourne opener, when the Australian dropped from second to ninth late on after sliding off at Turn 14 when rain had started falling.
Piastri’s ability to remain horizontal in high-pressured moments is what’s arguably given him the edge over Norris, with seven wins and five poles compared to five and four respectively for the Briton.
“These errors that we’ve seen on Oscar’s side, they are definitely uncharacteristic,” Stella added.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Andrea Stella, McLaren
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images
“I think Oscar has been the most solid driver in the 2025 campaign so far, and for what I could see, even with multi-champion drivers, sometimes you have a weekend in which it’s all about learning.
“I think Oscar concentrated on some learning opportunities this weekend, despite his will. The start, I think it’s just an excess of eagerness. I’m sure we have seen this now, and we won’t see this anymore.
“In terms of the lock-up, similar to yesterday [Saturday], 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, or we don’t know, it’s not relevant really.
“But I think one of the strongest features of Oscar is how rapidly he learns, how rapidly he improves, and how he can come back stronger.
“That’s why he’s been so successful in every category [F2 and F3 champion], 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.”
But Juan Pablo Montoya thinks differently, as the seven-time grand prix winner reckons Piastri will start to take a new approach across these final rounds – going back to a conversation at the Italian GP, the race before Baku.
Juan Pable Montoya
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
“We’re starting to see a side of Oscar we’ve not seen before – I don’t think Oscar has seen it before,” Montoya, whose best F1 championship result was third, told F1 TV.
“He went to Monza and said ‘I’m in a comfortable position, but I’m not going to change my approach’.
“I actually said in Monza, ‘whether you like it or not, mentally, you are going to change your approach because you’re going to start double-guessing yourself’.
“One side is ‘I’m not pushing enough because I don’t need to’ and then you’re going to prove to yourself that you are pushing enough and then you throw the car in a wall.”
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