McLaren driver Oscar Piastri feels there is no point ‘destroying himself’ in front of the media by being overly critical of his performances. He has seen his teammate Lando Norris adopt this approach ever since joining, but believes it is not prudent.
Piastri was very good in his rookie season at the Papaya-Orange and showed consistent improvement as he got more familiar with the car and engineers over the course of the year.
He fell well short of Norris’ tally of 205 points with 97, but he was far more positive in front of the media compared to his British teammate.
“I would say I’m very self-critical. For me, there’s just no point, especially in self-deprecation, destroying yourself in front of the media. If you want to do that on your own, then sure,” Piastri said.
“For me, just trying to find answers to things is the most important thing. There’s been some difficult sessions, some difficult races. But, and I think this also comes across in my radio, there’s no point getting upset or emotional about things you can’t control.
“It’s much better to try and fix things that you can control than just get upset about them. So, that’s always been my way of trying to tackle these things and just trying to keep a clear mind.”
Norris often let his frustration show in front of journalists, while Piastri was calm and composed in his approach. Piastri isn’t the only one who felt Norris was being too hard on himself, with McLaren team principal Andrea Stella also pointing this out.
“Certainly, even the way he addresses his own performance I think deserves attention because he just seems very harsh on himself,” Stella said.
“Sometimes we need to focus on the positives. There’s quite a lot of positives and we need to make sure that we look into that, and we make the negatives in a way be functional to perform, not simply to punish yourself.”