Stella: Working with Piastri, we feel his potential

That Oscar Piastri was officially recognized as the best rookie of the year and won a special FIA award: the 22-year-old Australian achieved 97 points during the season, was on the podium twice and also won the sprint in Qatar.

But McLaren team boss Andrea Stella is convinced this is just the beginning.

“When I think about the journey he has ahead of him, I think he is at the beginning of a long journey,” Stella said on Australia’s KTM Summer Grill podcast. – And I don’t think so because he is a newcomer, but because working with Oscar we feel his enormous potential.

I don’t know what success he will achieve in the future, because for now I only observe the beginning of his career. But I almost predict that he will encounter no obstacles at all on this path.”

But to fully realize the potential of a talented driver, the team must work with him in the right way, and Stella understands this well: “It is important to focus on this right away, because now we are just laying the base. We understand Oscar’s strengths, but we must continue to work hard to fully identify his capabilities, try to develop them quickly and also understand what his weaknesses are.

From my point of view, it is important to understand that this is a long process. I’ve said in the past that results will come, but it’s important to make some progress every day and try to make today’s results better than yesterday’s. And tomorrow everything should turn out better than today.

This is the attitude we are trying to develop at McLaren. This is of course the most important advice that I will continue to repeat in communicating with Oscar.”