‘It’s a big privilege to call this a job as it certainly doesn’t feel like one,” Oscar Piastri says of racing in Formula One, with a pleasing absence of bravado. Sunday is his first race at the Mexican Grand Prix but it will be a challenge he faces undaunted. In his first season of F1 and still only 22, the Australian rookie has been revelatory.
When his team finally gave him the tools to do the job, Piastri demonstrated the skill and character traits that mark him out as a driver destined for so much more. At McLaren, he is already being mentioned favourably in comparison with Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher.
Piastri exhibits none of the sense of entitlement some of his older peers are guilty aof nd acknowledges that when he first climbed into an F1 car he had a task to adjust to the company he now shared.
“You have people like Lewis [Hamilton] or Fernando with 15, 20 years of experience and when you start racing against guys you grew up watching on TV it can be a little bit daunting,” he says. “But at the same time it is pretty special to be able to race against those guys and to be able to fight against them is a nice reassurance that they are not alien.”
One striking element about Piastri’s debut season has been is how swiftly he has adapted, even in the rarefied air of world champions, an achievement of which he is rightly proud.
“It’s been a challenge. Coming into it was somewhat intimidating,” he says. “But I got over that pretty quick.”
Piastri is thoughtful in his answers and shows a mature and impressive attitude from one so young and still learning the game. His boyish features can switch from a broad smile to a more contemplative aspect as the occasion demands. There is a duality to him that has been noticed by McLaren and may take him far.
His race engineer is Tom Stallard, the former Olympic rowing silver medallist, who has worked with Jenson Button, Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren. “If at the start of the year you’d said he’s got five years’ F1 experience and I’ve just not seen it, then I wouldn’t be completely surprised,” he said. “Everything is meaningful. I’m not sure I’ve met that many [drivers] who I would describe as calm and intense.”
Piastri has already demonstrated not only that he could step up to F1 with assurance but, crucially, that he can adapt to the sport’s changing demands with remarkable dexterity.
McLaren began the year well off the pace, having failed to meet their aerodynamic targets for the new car. They flailed with a dishearteningly uncompetitive ride until several upgrades mid-season steadied the ship and brought them almost to the front of the grid. Since they were introduced in Austria for Piastri’s teammate, Lando Norris, and then in Silverstone for the Australian, the team have vaulted forward.
Norris has taken six podiums, Piastri scored his first in Japan and backed it with another at the next round in Qatar. Having trailed Aston Martin by 137 points before Austria, McLaren have now surpassed them to be fourth in the constructors’ championship.
This transition would have been hard on an experienced driver let alone a rookie but Piastri has embraced it and the signs had always been there after he won the F3 and F2 titles in his debut season. In qualifying for the sprint race in Belgium he claimed second behind Max Verstappen, one-hundredth of a second off the world champion in only his 12th meeting.
More was to follow. A front row in Japan was converted to a debut podium with third before he went one better with a win in the sprint and second in the Qatar Grand Prix. His drive of control and precision in brutal conditions belied his age and experience.
Piastri is cautious in assessing the success – unafraid to turn the mirror on himself in the search for improvement, but mature enough to not allow such examinations to become a negative spiral.
“Even though I got a podium in Japan I was not particularly happy with certain aspects of what I did in that race,” he says. “Trying to separate the result from the feeling of how you have driven is very important. So I am critical but it’s also key not to beat yourself up too much, recognising what you need to improve on and actioning it.”
This attitude has translated into results and is turning heads in the paddock. The team principal, Andrea Stella, who worked as an engineer with Schumacher at Ferrari and with Alonso at Ferrari and McLaren, has noted Piastri shares traits with both former champions.
“Drivers that have the potential to become world champion need to have a natural speed, which we saw straight away,” he said of the Australian. “Then they need to have the head, the capacity, the capability to use their talent, which Oscar establishes in an interesting way. He keeps his head very clean of disturbances.”
Calm but intense then, McLaren know they have a major asset. The Red Bull principal, Christian Horner, has admitted he regrets not bringing Piastri into the Red Bull junior programme. McLaren, who endured a legal dispute with Alpine with whom Piastri was a junior driver, have extended his contract to 2026.
It is hard to disagree with Stella that there is world championship potential in him. For now, though, Piastri is enjoying the privilege of being on the grid but there is clearly no lack of ambition.
“The competition has always been why I liked racing,” he says. “Racing against the best drivers in the world, the best teams in the world – that is definitely a big factor in my enjoyment of F1 but I am also very competitive, I always want to achieve more.”
