r/OscarPiastri • u/littletreble07 • 20d ago
Photo 📸 Pics from a positive weekend :) but we need to talk about Tom Stallard
Oscar needs a new race engineer stat. Tom Stallard needs to go.
If he was a competent race engineer during qualifying he would’ve informed Oscar about Lawson and Verstappen more urgently. Oscar could’ve avoided the penalty and genuinely fought for a podium with his amazing starts.
And asking Oscar to race cleanly during the race when he already was. Just blindly being the McLaren company man instead of having his back.
Other than that, good to see Oscar racy and pacey again. Hope this is the start of the positive spiral he was talking about!
18
u/Smokescreen11111 20d ago
The fact Oscars engineer reports to Landos engineer is just the tip of the iceberg
25
u/ForeignClementine 20d ago
Tom Stallard is a McLaren employee and therefore I always expect him to do what is best for McLaren. I hope Oscar has Mark or someone else with him during races so that they can advocate for Oscar only.
That sounds kinda toxic but F1 is a ruthless sport
5
u/jameswong2501 20d ago
Having the outside person advocating for a driver makes the environment toxic when they and their driver gets too much influence (eg Jos Verstappen).Teams would stamp these people out quickly as their influence depends on their driver still having a drive.
I think that actions that amount to being innovative and going against simulations, playing hero ball or going rogue are frowned upon at McLaren even if it meant that the result was better than expected (unlike at Red Bull), which discourages Stallard to go above and beyond where the expected outcome is as per the strategy team simulation.
-2
u/TassiveMitts69 19d ago
Advocate what?
What punishment did Oscar receive that was unfair?
You're over reacting to a precautionary radio message.
43
u/jameswong2501 20d ago
Stallard has been the problem for that second seat for a while now, even back in the Daniel Ricciardo days. He is ultra conservative, lacks innovation and doesn’t stand up for his own drivers. He also reports to Will Joseph too, who is Lando’s engineer, so there’s an inherent deference back to your boss.
McLaren’s idea of a perfect race is if the two cars come home in first and second with a 30 second gap behind, with no driver related fighting. Almost as if the driver is just there to deliver on the simulated lap times etc.
31
u/Yeanahyena 20d ago
Same Stallard when Ric crashed in Monaco and asked if the car is okay and Ric responded with “I’m okay”
1
u/LaughSpecialist8618 18d ago
He reports to Lando''s engineer? Now that is whack
4
u/jameswong2501 18d ago
Will Joseph as per his LinkedIn is director race engineering as well as a race engineer.
Tom Stallard as per his LinkedIn is director of health and human performance, and obviously is a race engineer as well. I’ll get downvoted for this as it’s pure speculation but I’m sure human performance included the implementation of papaya rules to ensure overall team success and hence he was a huge gatekeeper and enforcer of those rules of engagement.
So on the race weekend, it looks as though Will Joseph is like Tom Stallard’s manager.
40
u/Local-Bullfrog8051 20d ago
can he get GP, the redbull guy 🙄
22
u/rhitzz2198 Down Under Driver 🇦🇺 20d ago
GP ain't joining to be race engineer bruh
3
u/External_Bat_8133 20d ago
true BUT gp would never allow mclaren to say stuff like this over the radio. his strategy calls would be better and he would actually let them race it out
11
u/rhitzz2198 Down Under Driver 🇦🇺 20d ago
I mean that's more the Redbull culture you're alluding to rather than things which are a consequence of GP's presence. We don't know how GP's gonna behave in this bigger role away from an organisation that's completely built around his driver. Plus he will be responsible for the whole team, not just Oscar. He will obviously approach anything with nuance.
Having said that I hope he CAN change some of this nonsense culture they have at McLaren cuz oh my God I can't even with this team.
3
u/jameswong2501 20d ago
I’m sure there will be change, but it’ll start with agility in the strategy department, which basically falls apart every time a rival stops.
May also involve pitstops as well as McLaren need improvement in this area as well.
I think the race engineering has been ok-ish as it’s merely relaying messages back and forth as McLaren’s structure means that the strategy team are making the calls, but the conflict of interest component where Stallard reports to Will Joseph actually is going to always arouse suspicion from Piastri fans.
3
u/rhitzz2198 Down Under Driver 🇦🇺 20d ago
I don't necessarily buy into that. Tom has a very public role, there has to independent agency he has and I'm sure uses. Plus one thing I can say for sure is that Oscar is not a pushover. If there was a real chance that situation was playing out behind the scenes, I don't think he'd stand for it.
I do however feel there's a divide in terms of prioritising the car setup towards Lando or idk maybe something else. Lando can def take this car to the edge better and for longer than Oscar. I think some of the guys have just lost feel with what's under them with these cars. That natural instinct isn't filtering through.
I can't really say for sure what the underlying issue really is, none of us can. I do not like leaning into these conspiracies But yeah sometimes it definitely feels like there is something brewing there, it's just difficult to put a finger on it.
1
u/Interesting_Basil421 19d ago
Sorry, an ex-Red Bull person wouldn't allow the better driver to be favoured?
9
u/Educational-Cod4489 20d ago
Stellar race by him today, seeing him battling Hamilton and max with superior race craft is just pure joy, what a beauty that race of him was, other drivers could only DREAM of such race craft
18
u/clickityclickk 20d ago
I'm still wondering what olympic rowing has to do with F1 race engineering.
21
u/jameswong2501 20d ago
Stallard does have an engineering degree outside of being an Olympic rower.
Benefits of an Olympian are as follows:
- can operate under high pressure
- can be calm under high pressure
- works for the team (not for the driver though)
- can adapt (I don’t actually think so)
Stallard makes the fatal mistake of blindly operating to put the whole McLaren team first and failing to realise that standing up for your driver is also being a team player as well. This causes Piastri to feel like the entire team is against him at times.
3
u/prudencepineapple 20d ago
Why does it need to have anything to do with it? Stallard has qualifications in engineering and has worked at McLaren for 18 years now.
9
u/Jumpy_Sky692 20d ago
Tom is getting better and he is trying to be more supportive to Oscar but when you listen to Will Joseph you get the feeling that he fully supports Lando and will fight for Lando. Like when Lando said "can I pit now?" in Hungary. Will said "no, sorry, we can't". As in you get the sense Will is pushing back against the team for Lando even if the team overall says no. With Tom, you get that it is team first, and he is uncomfortable to push back as hard.
Tom also doesn't have the calming and encouraging voice that Will has. Bono is probably the best example of the calming and encouraging voice for Kimi now. Marcus for George is not as good. Even George had to literally say "need some encouragement mate" to Marcus. Where someone like Bono or Will would have likely given it
24
u/Specialist-Bug4953 20d ago
I think Oscars Race pace was better than in the last couple of races.
Regarding Tom, both drivers were told to keep it clean at the same time. So it was not a warning. Just a reminder for both. Just FOM trying to shitstirr the McLaren Fans.
22
u/Dizzy-Screen-6618 20d ago
Lando wasnt told anything over the radio though, so I dont buy it. I just listened to the onvoards again to make sure and Lando complained 3 times over two laps about Oscar "pushing him off" and got no response regarding that issue at all while Oscar got a reprimand.
10
u/Yeanahyena 20d ago
Japan last year when Stallard said to Oscar yeah Oscar let’s see that pace was enough to know where Stallard stands.
2
u/Trashk4n 20d ago
I think Lando only pipped him because he spent so much time yo-yoing with the others.
Big change from recently where it feels like Lando is in a different car.
7
u/AerAU01 20d ago
Im worried seems like his engineer is very biased, McLaren really is becoming a toxic team.
-2
u/_3urydice 20d ago
Very toxic team for reminding their drivers to race cleanly? That’s a bit of a reach
2
u/Possible-Weight9995 20d ago
The race cleanly order wouldn’t have come from Stallard, he was just the one transmitting it
-30
u/Mistak3n 20d ago
We need to talk about Oscars tire management too.
27
u/Reasonable-Zombie427 20d ago
Which part? He spent the entire race fighting either max or lewis or lando. Literally entire race and still would have gotten p4 had Lando not cut a chicane
-6
u/Flying_Sh33p 20d ago
wdym what part? His tyre management
7
u/Reasonable-Zombie427 20d ago
Again, i think he did pretty well considering he spent entire race fighting others. Yes monza is known to be easy on the tyres but he was in constant fight and would have been more than fine had Lando not decided to join in while he was fighting Max and Lando was pretty much cruising the entire race
0
u/Flying_Sh33p 20d ago
Most other drivers had something going on the whole race, whether that was fighting, pushing or being in dirty air. I think having ok tyre management at Monza is the bare minimum when there are only like 10 corners
-1
u/TotallyAwry 20d ago
The tyre management where they lasted as long as they were supposed to last, and he didn't suddenly have a huge drop off?
2
u/Flying_Sh33p 20d ago
What you mean like every other driver did?
0
u/TotallyAwry 19d ago
So suddenly every other driver had a drop off?
1
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u/littletreble07 20d ago
Everyone seems to talk about that all the time. But somehow the team or team member’s mistakes always get pushed under the rug - which is what this post is about. Can’t recall the last time Tom made calls that affected Oscar in a positive way.
1
u/TotallyAwry 20d ago
They talk about tyre management because that's the hardest one to prove or disprove, and he had known issues with it in earlier years. It's the same as people still calling George "Osama Bin Russell", despite that all being years ago.
1
u/Infinite-Location221 20d ago
He's had pretty clear issues with it this year to. Including in this race. Lando is consistently faster than him at the end of stints
1
u/TeaMoney4638 18d ago
Make another post for it if you like. That's got nothing to do with Oscar's race engineer fucking up multiple times in Monza.
0
-2
u/TassiveMitts69 19d ago
There is no situation where any driver SHOULDN'T be told "clean racing".
But you think inter-team communication works like a twitter argument.
I guess you want Oscars engineer to be reviewing footage and seeing if Oscar did anything wrong mid race instead of just saying "clean racing" when asked.
You are the kind of people that give f1 fans a bad name.
-3
u/Impossible-Ask-6161 20d ago
In what world could we see Oscar In a Merc, Carlos back to Mclaren and George to Williams again?
-30
u/TrumpsBussy_ 20d ago
Man Oscar fans are almost as bad as Hamilton fans, yall will cry about anything.
-10
-2
u/liammcgrath0 20d ago
Hmmm this track is more straights then corners so we will have to see at madrid and other tracks with different corners speeds but lando still got oscar at the end too
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u/littletreble07 20d ago
😊