McLaren boss hints Oscar Piastri was faster than Lando Norris in Miami

McLaren boss Andrea Stella reveals that Oscar Piastri was faster than Lando Norris in Miami over a single lap. Miami was an important race for the team, as the squad brought its first major upgrade.

Since the team has been unable to bring the entire upgrade for both drivers, Lando Norris got the complete upgrade package while Oscar Piastri got half of it. In qualifying for the Grand Prix, Piastri was not too far behind Norris and was out-qualified by less than a tenth.

During the weekend, it was revealed that the upgrades were with close 2 tenths more on Lando Norris' car as compared to Oscar Piastri who only had half of them. Piastri had an impressive start to the race where he was in P2 for a long time after overtaking Norris early in the race.

The Safety Car and subsequent restart went against him as contact with Carlos Sainz destroyed his race. The McLaren team principal was not too bothered by a lack of results for the Australian as he felt that the driver showed impressive pace during the weekend. A kind of performance that was arguably faster than Lando Norris in Miami. As quoted by PlanetF1, Stella said:

"Oscar comes out of [Miami] even more conscious of his strengths as a driver. We sort of knew already how fast he is on a single lap. Consider that he didn’t have the full package – and let me pay proper credit to Oscar, the gap he had to Lando in qualifying is smaller than the difference of the package he had."

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Oscar Piastri gets Stella's support after Miami as points gap with Lando Norris grows

After the 2024 F1 Miami GP, the gap between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri grew even more. After the race, Piastri finds himself at only 41 points, while his teammate is at 83 points. On paper, the number looks bad, but a part of it has to do with the misfortune suffered by the driver in Miami.

Talking to the media, Andrew Stella was not too bothered by the form shown by the Australian and felt that Piastri was actually doing well. He said (via PlanetF1):

“For me, he’s in a very strong place. Lando said something really nice before; he said by looking at Oscar overtaking a Ferrari, he got like, ‘Wow, we are actually there’. So, it was a realization for Lando himself. And Oscar could keep a strong pace in the first stint."

He added:

“So, I think he comes out of [Miami] with this sort of convictions, which, especially in terms of race pace, is something that we wanted to improve, having looked at Japan, having looked at China. For me, he’s in a very strong place.”

The Australian impressed a lot of people in his first F1 season. As a teammate of a highly-rated driver like Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri did not look out of place at any stage. Many expected Piastri to do a better job already in 2024, and looking at his relative performance to Norris, he's been a step behind in general.