Oscar Piastri’s McLaren deficit is technical, not psychological, says Andrea Stella

Oscar Piastri’s current deficit to Lando Norris is rooted in technical problems rather than psychological issues, believes Andrea Stella.

Piastri has played second fiddle to his world champion teammate in recent races, with Lando Norris delivering consecutive victories in Hungary and the Netherlands.

Oscar Piastri’s McLaren struggles are technical, says Andrea Stella

Norris rekindled his world championship defence with his first victory of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix before the summer break, before following it up with an even more convincing display of speed at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.

But, while Norris was maximising the potential of the McLaren, Piastri was unable to do the same as he secured sixth place to follow up what was a retirement in Budapest, but would likely have been a distant second place to his teammate without a technical issue.

The disparity in pace between the teammates has become more consistent this year, having been closer during their championship battle in 2025, but has become particularly pronounced since the introduction of the McLaren upgrade package rolled out in Hungary.

A key aspect of the regulation change this season has been a reduction in overall downforce and grip, which, as evidenced at low-grip venues in 2025, doesn’t play to Piastri’s strengths, but McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said he believes the Australian’s current deficit is solely rooted in solving this technical demand, rather than it being a case of his head having dropped.

“I think, last year, we had seen already with Oscar that, from a technical driving point of view, when the car has this low level of grip, like we saw last year for instance in Mexico or in Austin, he needs to adapt the way he drives,” the Italian told media, including PlanetF1.com, after the Dutch Grand Prix.

“The way he thinks, the driving, his expectations, and this requires a bit of, I would say, a bit of mental effort, which gets him to lose a couple of tenths of a second, because you sort of have to process rather than drive through pure instinct, because what happens is what you expect.

“So I think it’s one of those cases in which you have to adapt your natural driving style to the demand of the car, so it stays in the space of driving and in the space of the technical side of things.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with any psychological kind of opportunity; this is purely technical.”

Piastri himself cut a downbeat figure after the race at Zandvoort, seemingly at a loss as to why there is currently a performance gulf between himself and Norris.

Asked whether a difference in car set-up could explain the disparity in pace compared to his team-mate, Piastri replied: “In the set-up, not really.

“I mean, I think in the driving style, there clearly must be something.

“I think in qualifying this weekend, I felt much more comfortable and through Q1 and Q2, okay, Q3 I didn’t quite maximise it, but I was there in the fight and in the race, the story just wasn’t the same at all. Yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing.”

Piastri currently trails Norris by 55 points in the Drivers’ Championship and has pinpointed the looseness of the rear end as the one overriding area of McLaren’s 2026 challenger that he has struggled to get to grips with.

There have been occasions – such as at Suzuka and Miami – where this was less of an issue as he scored two consecutive podium finishes to kickstart his year after failing to start in Australia and China.

“I think in the races, just the rear of the car is very tricky to drive, and even in qualifying the last few weekends, it’s been difficult,” he explained.

“This weekend in qualifying that was much nicer, and I felt much more confident, and I think at certain points in the race today, I felt a lot better with that, but just the pace just hasn’t been there. Again, it’s not the first race this year that’s been the case.

“Some have been good, some have been very strong, but there’s been too many now that have been really a long way off.”

With Stella stating McLaren will more closely explore the reasons behind Piastri’s second stint on the hard tyres at Zandvoort, a stint in which the Australian particularly struggled for pace, the team boss pointed to how other factors also contributed to his overall net sixth place.

“I think this weekend, actually, we saw Oscar expressing competitive lap times, and I think in the race there were two factors that affected Oscar,” he said.

“One was the fact, and this is a team responsibility, that when we pitted to cover Russell, actually we lost the position to Russell because of a slow pit stop, and this is up to the team, not up to Oscar.

“Then the second stint on hard tyres, we were not able to switch these tyres on. They stayed permanently in a regime of very, very low grip, which we didn’t see in the first stint.

“So there are a couple of things that we need to work on. But I would also add to this that we are in a phase of Formula 1 in which we have at least three teams that are within one tenth of a second.

“As soon as things are not optimised, then you may have a very significant positional loss. So, if you are not optimised, now you are P6. It’s very brutal from this point of view.

“So I think we just have to keep working with Oscar on all the opportunities, and I’m happy with the improvements that I’ve seen during this weekend, and I’m sure that there will be even more for the rest of the season.”

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