Stella: Piastri's level of talent clear from the start

McLaren went through a lot of trouble, both legal and financial, to poach Piastri from Alpine in 2022 and place him in one of their cars to replace Daniel Ricciardo, and the young Australian has repaid their efforts with a strong performance in his debut Formula 1 season.

Piastri was close the Lando Norris from the start of the season, and missed out on chance of a podium at the British Grand Prix being unlucky with the timing of the Safety Car, and while he showed that he still lacks a bit of racing experience, the rookie has proven his worth.

Over the weekend of the Belgian Grand Prix, Piastri qualified and finished second in the Sprint Race on a weekend where he showed strong consistent pace in mixed weather conditions.

Stella was asked to evaluate Piastri's start with McLaren, he told Sky Sports F1: "We are first of all very happy to have Lando and Oscar in our team, we think they are incredible prospects for the future.

"Lando, I think is not a prospect, he is an established top driver. For us being in this journey with Oscar, it makes it even more exciting, because it was very clear right from the start – the level of talent.

"Even the analytical behaviour, looking at things, trying to learn, and at the same time always remaining very calm. He is able to absorb things, execute things, always staying very calm, which I think is a strong point of Oscar," he clarified.

Stella explained the difference between Norris and Piastri, revealing the latter helps push his teammate, he said: "One [point] is that Lando is definitely evolving towards more of a leading position.

"Not a leading position as the leading driver, but just drivers that kind of try to pull the team, just not only being on the receiving end of it.

"And the second point is that by having a driver as quick as Oscar, definitely you are in the condition to exploit the potential of the car better, because in some corners, even in FP1, Oscar is immediately competitive if not a little quicker.

"So Lando can say ‘ok, we can do this in this corner’, and so on. And likewise, obviously, for Oscar with Lando," he added.

The McLaren boss also revealed both drivers offer similar feedback to the team's engineers which makes life easier for them, he said: "The second element, which is remarkable this year, is how similar the comments are between the two drivers.

"And this is not only in the off-line debriefings, but it's also when the drivers come back after they run the first run during a session. They actually use the same terminology, like it looks like they are in communication before reporting their feedback.

"This is obviously very important for engineers, because it means that what's coming from the driver is very consistent, is very clear, it gives you a clear direction for set-up and for development," the Italian concluded.