{"id":415353,"date":"2025-11-30T16:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/415353\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T16:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:02:10","slug":"mclarens-theory-of-why-oscar-piastri-is-back-to-his-f1-best-in-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/415353\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren’s theory of why Oscar Piastri is back to his F1 best in Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a>\u00a0Formula 1\u00a0team principal Andrea Stella says Oscar Piastri<\/a>‘s\u00a0return to form in Qatar fits within his high-grip theory about the Australian.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Piastri\u00a0struggled for pace compared to team-mate Lando Norris<\/a> at low-grip circuits in Austin and Mexico,\u00a0and also\u00a0saw Norris beat him in Brazil and Las Vegas. But the Australian was back to his\u00a0very best\u00a0this weekend in Qatar, taking a clean sweep of sprint qualifying, the sprint race and pole for grand prix qualifying\u00a0\u2013\u00a0his\u00a0first since Zandvoort at the end of August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pole for the grand prix could very well have gone to Norris, who felt he still had a few tenths in the bank but made a mistake at the start of his final flying lap in Q3. But there’s little question that\u00a0Piastri\u00a0is firing on all cylinders again, and according to his team principal\u00a0it’s\u00a0not a coincidence that\u00a0the\u00a0Australian’s revival comes at the high-downforce Losail circuit\u00a0\u2013 the\u00a0antithesis of Austin and Mexico in terms of surface grip available.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

“Even when we were commenting on Oscar struggling a little bit, I’ve always emphasised that there are technical aspects in the way the drivers exploit the grip available and the potential in the car,” Stella explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And here in Qatar, we go back to the category of circuits with high grip.\u00a0And in the category of circuits of high grip,\u00a0I think Oscar\u00a0is in his most natural way of driving the car, and he can really maximise the potential available.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“At circuits like Mexico, Austin,\u00a0especially in terms of braking and rotation of the car, you need to slide the rear axle.\u00a0It’s almost kind of a different technique of driving a Formula 1 car, and it’s a technique that Oscar is developing, but actually it’s in the category where Lando excels.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stella\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0believe\u00a0Piastri’s\u00a0slump had a mental\u00a0component\u00a0as he lost control of the drivers’ championship to Norris.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it has much to do with mindset, mentality,” he argued. “Oscar has been very solid from a mental point of view throughout, this is just a technical matter.\u00a0We talk about professional sport at the highest level, and at this level, when you kind of give up 1% from a technical point of view, then you may lose a few positions because the competition is very strong.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

If\u00a0there’s\u00a0one surprise Doha has thrown up, then\u00a0it’s\u00a0not the fact that McLaren has the fastest car, as expected, but exactly how it has\u00a0generated\u00a0that advantage over Red Bull and Mercedes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lando <\/p>\n

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Andrea Stella, McLaren<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andy Hone\/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

McLaren’s usual happy hunting ground is the type of long, medium speed corners that Red Bull tends to struggle with, with Max Verstappen<\/a>‘s RB21 happier in high-speed, sudden changes of direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0quite the case in Qatar, with McLaren particularly rapid in the extremely\u00a0high speed\u00a0final sector, while Red Bull\u00a0\u2013 and\u00a0especially Mercedes\u00a0\u2013\u00a0seemed\u00a0able to\u00a0go toe-to-toe with its MCL39 in the medium-speed second sector and the first two corners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We expected this track to suit the strengths of our car, but the way in which we are fast is not exactly how we would have anticipated,” Stella pointed out. “We are gaining a lot of lap time in corners 4 and 5, and then in the high-speed section, especially in the last sector you see that we are always purple.\u00a0But in reality, I\u00a0was expecting to be fast in the medium-speed corners like corner 1, last corner, or the middle sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think this also depends on the way you set up the car or the way you have developed the car.\u00a0We’ve\u00a0definitely done\u00a0some work to improve the high-speed.\u00a0And at the same time, I think what we might have seen is that Red Bull might have gone\u00a0almost in\u00a0an opposite direction in terms of compromising\u00a0possibly some\u00a0of the strengths in high-speed to gain more potential in\u00a0low-speed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Actually, the best car in the medium-speed corners here in Qatar is Mercedes.\u00a0The reality is that everything is\u00a0very, very close.\u00a0I think it’s a fair representation of the fact that the regulations are very mature and now everyone is converging.”<\/p>\n

Photos from Qatar GP – Sprint and Qualifying<\/p>\n

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Read Also:<\/p>\n

We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

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Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren\u00a0Formula 1\u00a0team principal Andrea Stella says Oscar Piastri‘s\u00a0return to form in Qatar fits within his high-grip theory about…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":415354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[194089,1461,23736,194844,34614,194088,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-415353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-f1-qatar-grand-prix-2025","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-mclaren","11":"tag-mclarens-theory-of-why-oscar-piastri-is-back-to-his-f1-best-in-qatar","12":"tag-oscar-piastri","13":"tag-qatar-gp","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115639496436513481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}