Oscar Piastri: McLaren boss Andrea Stella says 'best version' of Australian is inspiring team after Japanese GP podium

Andrea Stella says Oscar Piastri has been an "inspiration" to McLaren after bouncing back from a nightmare start to the season with a podium at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Piastri was unable to start the opening two races in Australia and China - crashing on the way to the grid in Melbourne before suffering a mechanical fault in Shanghai - but did not let that disappointment affect him in Japan as he qualified third and finished second behind race-winner Kimi Antonelli.

The McLaren driver was actually in a position to win the race but lost out to Antonelli through a Safety Car period, but still impressively fended off the other Mercedes of George Russell and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

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"Despite Oscar not having started the two main races at the start the season, based on what we have seen in testing, in practice, in qualifying, based on his overall attitude and mental state, I think we are seeing the best version of Oscar - the strongest Oscar since he has been in Formula 1," said Stella.

"Finally, he had an opportunity [in Japan] to demonstrate it and he has done it at his full extent. Having gone through two races, especially in the home race, where you are not in condition to start, for a situation that was completely avoidable, it can really bog you down. But if anything, I think we have seen his steadiness, his strength and a strength that has been able to be passed on to the team."

Piastri, who is 51 points behind championship leader Antonelli, himself stated Japan was "probably one of my best weekends in F1" which Stella appeared to agree with.

"The team gets a lot of inspiration from the charismatic leadership that the drivers can offer. That has been definitely a boost for the entire team," continued Stella.

"Well done to Oscar for the way he has been facing this start of the season. Now it is the responsibility of McLaren and the team to offer Lando and Oscar, once again, a car that can compete for victories. I think we surprised ourselves, honestly, that we were in a condition to win.

"If we want to be in this condition in the future consistently, we will have to improve the chassis by a few tenths of a second. That is the aim, that we have in relation to bringing upgrades to the coming races."

Piastri: A long way to go to catch Mercedes

McLaren face an uphill battle to defend their Constructors' Championship from last year after Mercedes' excellent start to the season which has put the Silver Arrows 45 points ahead of Ferrari and 89 points in front of McLaren after three rounds.

Piastri, who narrowly missed out on the drivers' title to McLaren team-mate Lando Norris last season, thinks the team have to get on top of their reliability issues as well as finding more pace in the car.

"I'm very happy with the performance that I put in, very happy with the performance from the whole team. Clearly, we've still got some, firstly, performance to find," he said.

"But also on Lando's side of the garage was a pretty interrupted weekend with all the issues, and clearly the start of the season has not been easy for us with reliability, so we've got a long way to go. I think we showed that if we get everything as good as we can get it, then we can cause a few headaches."

Piastri says McLaren have made a big jump in their start performance after he went from third to first before Turn 1 at Suzuka, which underlined their fast practice starts earlier in the weekend.

He added: "It's interesting to see when someone else has the fastest car that it's not that straightforward. And yeah, I think the fact that I could keep George behind for so long was really encouraging.

"But we're under no illusion. We did everything right this weekend and we still got beaten by 15 seconds, so we've got a pretty big gap to fill. I'm confident that we can get there, but yes, we've still got some work to do."

Formula 1 returns on May 1-3 with the Miami Grand Prix, the season's second Sprint weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime

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