![\"Stella](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/XPB_1382529_HiRes.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMcLaren team principal has praised Oscar Piastri for his strong fightback in Mexico. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMcLaren team principal has praised Oscar Piastri for his strong fightback in Mexico. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
While teammate Lando Norris dominated from pole to victory<\/a> \u2014 retaking the championship lead from Piastri by a single point \u2014 the weekend proved far more challenging for the 24-year-old, who struggled for pace at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and extended his podium drought to four races<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite qualifying only seventh, Stella said Piastri\u2019s performance in the race showed a clear step forward, even if it was masked by traffic.<\/p>\n He noted that the low-grip circuit exposed an area where Piastri\u2019s natural driving style didn\u2019t align with the car\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n \u201cWe reviewed with Oscar extensively from a data, comment, video point of view, and I think we extracted some important information in terms of how the car needs to be driven in these special low-grip conditions that we are facing here in Mexico,\u201d Stella explained.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like in this regime, you have to drive the car in a way that adapts to the fact that the car slides a lot and can slide and produce lap time. This is not necessarily the way in which Oscar feels naturally that he is producing lap time.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Stella, both the team and driver made adjustments that paid off in Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n \u201cWe identified a few things that we could do with the car and a few things that he could do with the driving,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think Oscar should be very proud of himself of how he has handled the transition from yesterday to today.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could see in the race that he was applying this. [He] definitely had a more competitive pace than yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n Stella also acknowledged that Piastri\u2019s efforts were hampered by traffic, noting the result might have been stronger had he found clear air<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a shame that he was not in condition to fully use the space because we could not find the way to just get him out of traffic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe spent the entire race looking at the gearbox of the car ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n The McLaren boss believes the experience will ultimately serve Piastri well as the championship enters its final stretch.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important for Oscar that we go through this kind of experience in which we learn new tools to add to the toolbox, because that\u2019s how you become the most complete version of a Formula 1 driver,\u201d Stella said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd this is also important for the next four races in which we\u2019re going to find, again, different conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, we need to be ready for all of them. But I think Oscar should be very proud and happy with this race.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren team principal has praised Oscar Piastri for his strong fightback in Mexico. Image: XPB Images While teammate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,913,139444,806,805,803,804,2333,22708,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-250701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mclaren","11":"tag-mexico-city-gp","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-oscar-piastri","17":"tag-slot1_f1","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}