Oscar Piastri’s switch to McLaren is the right move for the highly rated rookie despite the struggling team’s shocking start to the 2023 season, according to Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft.
Piastri left the Alpine driver academy last season to join top midfield rival McLaren, replacing the underperforming Daniel Ricciardo.
But the historic Woking team has taken a significant step backwards this season.
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McLaren has been talking down the car’s potential since its launch and at testing admitted to having missed key development targets.
Both cars suffered terminal technical problems in Bahrain and neither driver scored in a damage-affected Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, leaving the team last in the constructors standings with no points.
Alpine has resumed its place at the top of the midfield in fifth, albeit having been jumped by Aston Martin.
But despite the gloom about McLaren’s prospects, Croft thinks Piastri’s move to Woking could be ideal for the rookie who arrived in Formula 1 with the spotlight firmly on him and with great expectation following his stellar junior career.
“That could be what Oscar’s looking for, you know,” Croft told Fox Sports. “That could be good news for Oscar, to learn his craft in Formula 1 outside the glare of the spotlight of a need for regular top-six finishes, regular top-six places on the grid.
“I think he’s the real deal, Oscar Piastri. I think he’s a super driver, I really do, and I think going to McLaren eventually will prove to be the right decision, but in the short term it might look like the wrong decision and he’s going to have to put up with a bit of pain this year.
“He’ll be judged against a teammate who is a fine driver and has proved consistently that he is a fine driver, and anytime that Oscar Piastri beats Lando Norris, that’s a decent performance as a rookie.
“So I think Oscar can use this to his advantage and bed in and settle in nicely to what I’m sure will be a very long term future in the sport of Formula 1.”
Lando claims he LET Oscar pass… | 01:01
But Croft thinks the team isn’t as far off the pace as the first two races suggested, which should give some hope that the April update can make a difference to its outlook for the season.
“I don’t think they’re as bad as Saudi made them look,” he said. “I think if look at Lando (Norris)’s pace in Bahrain, his race pace wasn’t too bad towards the end, but he’d already been into the pits [five times].
“I don’t think their situation is as bad as it looks; however, their car is not anywhere near where they would want it to be, and when the upgrades come in Baku, I don’t think that’s going to suddenly propel them into the top six on the grid.
“It might just get them into sixth place [among the teams]. That midfield battle is so tight that they’ve still got some work to do with that one.”
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But the time line on McLaren’s rebuild has been thrown further into question by new team principal Andrea Stella’s decision to sack technical director James Key and restructure the design office by dividing the head role among three people.
One of them, former Ferrari high-flyer David Sanchez, won’t start in his position technical director for car concept until next January.
The new structure coincides with the expected opening of a new wind tunnel, simulator and manufacturing facility later this year.
“It is the definition of madness if something’s not right to keep on repeating it over and over again,” Croft said of the restructuring program.
“I think Andrea Stella — every conversation I have with him, I’m more and more impressed. I think he’s a very patient man who listens hard to the people that he’s got around him and will work tirelessly with them to fix things and get it right.
“But it won’t happen overnight.
“They’ll get the wind tunnel up and running, and that will be a massive boost to them to get that, because they’ve been working on that project for a while now, to get that sorted.
“It won’t happen overnight, but McLaren will rise eventually.”
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