Oscar Piastri stresses on his improvement from 2024 to 2025 in F1 Chinese GP as did Andrea Stella and go through how the grand prix panned out.
Even though Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton took the sprint glory in F1 Chinese GP, McLaren’s Piastri was still strong to end up second then, way ahead of teammate Lando Norris, who struggled. The Australian had upperhand on the field in main qualifying to secure his first pole.
He backed it up with a win leading from start to finish. There could have been a scare from his teammate Norris, but the Brit had his own struggles to handle. For the Australian, the bigger task was getting through the one-stop and he showed massive step of improvement from 2024 to 2025.
Last year, Piastri finished seventh in sprint race and eighth in the main race. He was long off from the leaders but he showed a huge improvement in 2025 finishing second and first, respectively. For him and even team boss Stella, this was the bigger thing than the victory.
“Yeah, very satisfying,” said Pistri. “Obviously, I think, you know, it’s always a pretty good day when you cross the line first, that’s obvious. But I think for me this has been the most satisfying, not just race, but weekend for myself. I think the two wins I had previously were very different, and I think this one’s been the most complete. So I’m very, very happy with the whole effort of the whole team this weekend.
“I think we started with a car that was quick, but pretty tricky at times, and I think we did a good job of trying to tackle that. And to come away with this result is a perfect end to the weekend. I mean, I was very happy to come through Turn 1 in the lead. I would have been pretty annoyed if I wasn’t. So that was pretty crucial for the first part of the race, especially given that we didn’t really know if it was going to be a one- or a two-stop at that point.
“And how critical being able to dictate the pace looked yesterday in the Sprint—I was obviously happy to keep the lead. I think this weekend’s been maybe less emotional than the first two wins I’ve had, but definitely more satisfying. I think it’s been a weekend where I’ve been quite comfortable, been confident in what I needed to do and how I’ve been driving.
“I still had to push and keep my foot on the gas, because the gap, apart from the last few laps, was never that big behind. So I always had to keep on my toes, but I feel like I just managed the race well when I needed to, and pushed when I needed to. Regarding the tyre handling, I mean probably about 10–15 laps on the Hard. I think already on the Medium it was easier than in the Sprint, but I think the Hard behaved much better than we all expected.
“I think George might have a different answer on that, but certainly for me, I went into it thinking it would be a two-stop and then even early in the race I still thought that, and was pleasantly surprised that the Hard was as strong as it was,” summed up Piastri, who then stressed on his step from 2024 to 2025 which was the bigger win for him in the road to becoming a complete driver.
“I mean, I think saying I struggled a little bit last year is being pretty nice,” continued Piastri. “It was a big turnaround this weekend compared to China last year. It was a track that I had a lot of homework to do from 12 months ago. Yes, it’s changed a lot with the resurfacing, but there’s still a lot of challenges around just the layout, regardless of the surface.
“So yeah, I think for me it’s been very satisfying to have probably my most complete weekend in F1 this weekend be at a track I struggled the most at last year. So very pleased with the hard work that not just I’ve done, but the whole team around me. The engineers on my side of the garage, but everyone at McLaren — for firstly giving us a car that’s much stronger than it was 12 months ago here, but also being able to chip in where they can and try to help me improve.
“So I think it’s been a really nice show of progress in 12 months, but there’s still going to be challenges along the way. It’s just a nice confidence boost at the moment,” summed up Piastri, as team boss Stella backed him in deserving the pole and win after the step he took in 12 months time.
“Oscar deserves the victory, deserved the pole position, has been very solid throughout the weekend at one of the circuits where he struggled just 12 months ago, like if we go back and look at the race 12 months ago, I think he would have finished 30s or something from Lando and all this weekend, he was at the top level,” said Stella to media.
“Yes. I think his racecraft, his overall speed, his, to some extent his questions related to the race, they were very punctual. They were like the right question, at the right time. So I would consider that, once again, as part of the racecraft. They have improved over the winter. There’s been quite a lot of work, you know, a long list of opportunities, a long list of races that you review.
“Here we should do this, we should do that, these adaptations. But for me, the biggest indication of his progress is 12 months ago here in China. I still remember after the race, having a chat one-to-one with Oscar outside one of these hospitalities and, like, scratching our head a little bit and saying, like ‘there’s a lot to pick in terms of learning from this race’. And looking 12 months after, I think we took all this learning, and we capitalised,” summed up Stella.
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-chinese-grand-prix-piastri-leads-from-pole-as-norris-jumps-russell.1827367910236875162
Here’s Lando Norris on brake issue, Andrea Stella adds
