McLaren draw Michael Schumacher parallel in Oscar Piastri defence

McLaren have defended Oscar Piastri after the world championship leader crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Piastri crashed out on a disastrous first lap to compound an uncharacteristically sloppy weekend in Baku, having also crashed in qualifying which left him out of position and a lowly ninth on the grid.

Despite his errors, McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris could only claw back six points as he came home seventh, meaning Piastri still holds a relatively comfortable 25-point advantage with seven rounds to go.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella used legendary seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher as an example of how even the best drivers are prone to occasional mistakes.

"I have worked with multi-champion drivers, and in a season - every season, even the most dominant - even by one of the best drivers in the history of Formula 1, like Michael Schumacher, I have seen events like this," Stella said.

"Events in which the most you take away [from the weekend] is the learning, because things become, for some reasons difficult, and as soon as you misjudge the grip available, you get highly punished.

"So, a one-off weekend in which things don't go his way, and he ultimately had a loss to review. It is no surprise, no exception that we should not be worried about it, because this has happened to pretty much all champions, even the ones with the best track record.”

Stella has backed Piastri to learn from his error-strewn weekend and return stronger.

”He comes out with no points and lots of learning," Stella added. "And I've already had a chat with Oscar and his mind is already fully functional, processing, he's already into thinking, 'that's what I've learned. I look forward to the next one'.

“And also we said with Oscar that today, even without issues, it's not like there were many points available, starting in ninth place.

“I think one of the strongest features of Oscar is how rapidly he learns, how rapidly he improves and how he can come back stronger," he said. "That's why he's been so successful in every category.

"I think that's exactly what will happen in his Formula 1 career and we will see it in the remainder of the season."

Piastri rues ‘messy’ Azerbaijan GP

It was arguably the first time Piastri had made a major error since he dropped positions with an off in the closing stages of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Piastri held his hands up and admitted he made “far too many mistakes” across the weekend in Baku.

“There's not been anything that’s different and I think for me that's - it depends how you want to look at that, but for me, if I felt like I was in a completely different headspace then it's kind of easier to blame it on that and also a problem to rectify,” the Australian conceded.

“But this weekend's felt like any other weekend. Just unfortunately there's been far too many mistakes from start to finish. Every single session has been messy. So, yeah, just trying to clean that up is the important thing for the future.”