“The future is his.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, again, saying exactly how it is. In this case, regarding the coming years of Oscar Piastri in Formula 1.
Specifically, Stella was answering a question regarding how Piastri might react to the expected team orders push from McLaren to support Lando Norris’s 2024 title bid.
“I think it will be [OK],” Stella said at the end of his post-race media briefing at his home Italian race, where he knows exactly the right bakery just outside the Monza track to visit for pre-event treats for his team.
“If the things we say are sensible according to the principles like fairness, because it's also fairness that [means] if you support your team-mate winning the championship, for the team it's a big boost. If we win both championships it's a massive boost and the benefits for a big boost of the team, even if he is the other driver.
“Because we don't have to forget that Oscar is in the middle of his second season in Formula 1. The future is his, it's Oscar's. He needs to make sure that when it’s the time to support, he puts the support he gives to the team or to Lando, [so that in the future] for him [it’s] an investment.”
It’s therefore clear, in the aftermath of that lap one pass on his team-mate at Monza, a race McLaren surely should’ve won 1-2, how the orange team is working hard to keep Piastri and his camp onside during what is a delicate phase in their relationship.
The way the 2024 season started – with Red Bull dominating and McLaren seemingly having not progressed from how it ended 2023, as generally Max Verstappen’s squad’s closest challenger – meant logically any title push was unlikely so as a result a team orders discussion would have been far down the list of priorities.
But given how Monza played out, as much as Stella himself is understood to dislike having to discuss them publicly, getting all controllable elements for a title tilt in line is McLaren’s clear imperative heading to F1’s latest street track run now coming in Baku and Singapore.
Thanks to F1’s hefty calendar size these days, everyone down to George Russell in eighth is still mathematically in the hunt. While Norris is 62 points adrift of Verstappen in second, Piastri is 106 back in fourth. Charles Leclerc and Ferrari remain dark prancing horses in between too…
That points gap – and as many have been pointing out, the “not bad for a number two driver” experience of Piastri’s manager Mark Webber has surely been covered by the two Australians – can be read into what happened at the start at Monza.
Especially given McLaren hadn’t moved to impose team orders at that stage. It still might not heading to Baku, or at least not publicly acknowledge any change to the ‘Papaya Rules’ saga given it doesn’t have to.
But had it not been for his pitstop timing misfortune in Miami, which helped Norris significantly, Piastri’s points gap relative to the suddenly vulnerable Verstappen might be much closer to his team-mate’s right now.
Overall in 2024, Piastri hasn’t enjoyed quite as long a purple patch in the upgraded MCL38. It’s worth remembering how those critical Miami developments went to Norris first, who he now trails 11-3 in terms of qualifying head-to-head.
That stat reflects what is one of Norris’s key strengths, even if he can still often push too hard and pay the price, and Piastri has also shown this term he still needs to improve on the critical in-race tyre management factor as well as cut out critical qualifying mistakes.
On the tyre management factor, it was clear just how important clean air was on the shock graining factor at Monza.
Norris at one stage couldn’t understand why his left-front was impossible to keep alive, while eventual winner Leclerc found his car balance suddenly massively improved once the McLarens had pitted out of his way last Sunday. The added sliding in the dirty air just exacerbated the handling issues the graining generated.
But, having shown himself capable of leading McLaren’s charge, as he also did at tricky venues like Monaco, Piastri is making quite the name for himself in F1.
Amid the discussion of the rapid rise of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman for 2025, Piastri did likewise last year, having won rookie Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles, and had two F1 teams go to court to secure his services. He’s lived up to the expectations that it generated.
Other teams – an Adrian Newey-featuring technical department at Aston Martin, perhaps? – will have been paying attention to exactly this during 2024’s wild driver market merry go-round.
That could well be repeated in the years to come given the number of rookies coming next season that will either sink or swim – to borrow Toto Wolff’s favourite metaphor for Antonelli – and veterans such as Fernando Alonso perhaps not getting another career chapter. Illustratively speaking, of course…
Piastri showing so well against Norris in 2024 is itself impressive – especially in just his second year in F1.
That uncompromising approach in Monza – where his pass was on-the-edge but fair, with lots of intricate, pressurised judgement needed to pull it off – suggests he's got the ruthless streak great F1's champions have shown in the past like Michael Schumacher or Alonso himself.
Indeed, the question about Norris lacking the same may well be factor in why McLaren hasn’t imposed team orders to this point.
Piastri’s young F1 career is key. A lot is now expected of him, but that’s been the case since he arrived at the top level and he's just thrived ever since.
