Andrea Stella hailed Oscar Piastri as an “inspiration” for McLaren after the young driver recovered from a nightmare start to the season to take a podium at the Japanese Grand Prix. Having missed the opening two races — crashing en route to the grid in Melbourne and then suffering a mechanical failure in Shanghai — Piastri qualified third and finished second in Japan behind race winner Kimi Antonelli.
Piastri looked on course for victory before a Safety Car sequence reshuffled the running, but he produced a strong defence to keep George Russell (Mercedes) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) at bay. Stella said the weekend revealed “the best version of Oscar — the strongest Oscar since he has been in Formula 1,” praising his steadiness, resilience and the positive influence he has brought to the team.
Piastri sits 51 points adrift of championship leader Antonelli but described Suzuka as “probably one of my best weekends in F1.” Stella added that the drivers’ leadership gives the whole team a lift: the charisma and example of the drivers have been a real boost to morale.
While celebrating the result, Stella was candid about McLaren’s work to do. He congratulated Piastri for how he handled the season’s rocky opening and urged the race team to match the drivers’ form with a quicker, more reliable car. “If we want to be in this condition in the future consistently, we will have to improve the chassis by a few tenths of a second,” Stella said, outlining upgrades as the plan to close the gap.
McLaren face a challenging fight in the Constructors’ Championship: Mercedes currently lead the standings, 45 points clear of Ferrari and 89 points ahead of McLaren after three rounds. That deficit underlines Stella’s call for performance and reliability gains.
Piastri — who narrowly lost last season’s title to team-mate Lando Norris — echoed those priorities, praising the team effort in Japan but urging improvements. Norris himself endured an interrupted weekend, highlighting McLaren’s early-season reliability issues. Piastri also highlighted positives from Suzuka: an improved start that took him from third to first into Turn 1 and a long, encouraging defence of Russell, even while recognising the remaining gap. “We did everything right this weekend and we still got beaten by 15 seconds, so we’ve got a pretty big gap to fill,” he said, while expressing confidence the team can close it.
Formula 1 now heads to Miami for the May 1-3 race weekend, the season’s second Sprint event, where McLaren will hope to build on the momentum from Japan.