14 February 2023 , 21:51
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McLaren hope they can benefit from how much new driver Oscar Piastri is "challenging" the team ahead of his debut season.
The Aussie is a Formula 1 rookie set to partner Lando Norris, who himself is still only 23. But the Brit is much more experienced and is about to begin his fifth season in the sport – and his first as the true leader of the team on the track.
Not that Piastri is being meek ahead of his maiden season in the sport. According to new McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, the 2021 Formula 2 champion has been making his presence felt as the team gears up for the approaching campaign.
"We gave him some audio files to listen to of previous races," said the Italian of Piastri. "The way he gets to the bottom of matters, even making questions – 'why did you guys do this here? You could have done that'.
"He challenges you. In a very polite and constructive way, but he doesn't take things superficially, he doesn't stop challenging just to please. This is what we want. We want to be challenged.
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"In this sense, he is a demanding guy who can help raise standards, by being almost constantly unhappy. Even driving on the simulator, you let him drive and you can observe the way a driver challenges himself in terms of finding speed.
Andrea Stella was promoted to team principal by McLaren (McLaren Racing)"There are drivers with whom you have to guide the process step-by-step, while Oscar was pretty much able to go very close to the limit exploring his own resources. In this sense, he was impressive."
Understandably, then, Norris is expecting some pressure from his new team-mate this year. The Brit believes the addition of the hungry F2 champion is "absolutely going to help us as a team".
He added: "It's going to force me to push the limit maybe that little bit more. It's actually something I was doing last year, but it might just be that he's able to push me more in different areas of my driving and that should only be able to help us take a step forward as a team and to also score more points as a team by the end of the season."