<\/p>\n
The result marked a year since Piastri last stood on the top step of the podium, while Norris secured another victory to strengthen a season that has already delivered two Grand Prix wins and a Sprint victory.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Piastri has managed only two podium finishes this year and again struggled for pace in the latter stages of the race at Zandvoort.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite showing strong speed early on, Piastri faded after a second pit stop and eventually finished behind both Ferrari drivers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella said the Australian’s difficulties are largely technical rather than mental. “I think last year we had seen already with Oscar that from a technical driving point of view, when the car has this low level of grip, he needs to adapt the way he drives,” Stella said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stella explained that the characteristics of the MCL40 require Piastri to process information differently instead of relying purely on instinct. “So, I think it’s one of those cases in which you have to adapt your natural driving style to the demands of the car,” Stella said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I don’t think it has anything to do with any psychological kind of opportunity. This is purely technical.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Piastri briefly looked set for a strong finish after overtaking Mercedes driver George Russell and moving into third place.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, Stella said several factors outside the driver’s control contributed to the disappointing result. “When we pitted to cover Russell, actually we lost the position to Russell because of a slow pit stop. And this is up to the team, not up to Oscar,” Stella said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stella also revealed that McLaren struggled to get the hard tyres working during Piastri’s second stint. “We were not able to switch these tyres on. They stayed permanently in a regime of very, very low grip,” Stella said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stella noted that Formula One’s current competitiveness leaves little margin for mistakes. “We are in a phase of Formula One in which we have at least three teams that are within one tenth of a second,” Stella said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“If you’re not optimised, now you are P6. It’s very brutal from this point of view.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite the setback, Stella said McLaren has seen encouraging signs from Piastri and expects further improvements during the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–F1\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16372,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-43818","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"McLaren driver Oscar Piastri is continuing to search for answers after another difficult weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix, where a sixth-place finish highlighted the growing gap to teammate Lando Norris.","published_date":"","news_description":"McLaren driver Oscar Piastri is continuing to search for answers after another difficult weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix, where a sixth-place finish highlighted the growing gap to teammate Lando Norris.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43819,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43818\/revisions\/43819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}