There’s no denying it, Formula One is a brutal place. The global sporting circus has been leaping around the world at breakneck speed for the best part of a century, offering up jeopardy, disaster, guts, glory and gold in equal measure. Across the decades, the sport has chewed up and spat out countless drivers, and raised only a precious few to the dizzying heights of global sporting stardom. It’s a cut-throat career path, which sees thousands of drivers compete each year, all aiming for a shot at securing just 20 seats in F1. And that’s only the beginning. After that, you’ll need to get past 19 of the world’s sharpest and fastest drivers to reach the top of the podium and then do that repeatedly to win the championship. Then maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance that people will remember you.
With all that, it’s a bit of a mystery why someone as chipper and cheerful as Oscar Piastri would want anything to do with it. Born in Melbourne, within earshot of the Australian Grand Prix race track, it was the echo of cars screaming around his local streets that convinced Piastri to give life as a racing driver a shot. “I wanted to get to F1, of course, but I don’t know if I ever fully believed it was possible,” admits the 23-year-old, smiling proudly in his papaya-coloured McLaren team kit.
“I knew, even when I was karting and racing the cars in Formula Four that the chances of reaching F1 are so slim, and I always tried to stay realistic. My main goal was to become a professional racing driver and be paid to drive race cars.”
With two wins to his name and no fewer than ten podiums in the 45 Grand Prix races since he first turned a wheel in the sport at the beginning of the 2023 season, it’s fair to say Piastri has surpassed his relatively modest aim of being paid to drive racing cars. And then some.
Few have made such an impression on the sport, so quickly. The young Australian exudes a composed laid-back charm, but examine his entry into Formula One in a little more detail and you’ll soon uncover a more ruthless, almost Machiavellian side.
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Like many racing drivers, Piastri spent most of his youth rising through the typical racing ranks. After ticking off the karting competitions in Australia, Piastri followed in the footsteps of his fellow countrymen Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo, and moved to Europe to further his career. “Being from Australia, it’s not that simple to reach F1 – you’ve got to make some pretty big life decisions and changes to be able to make that possible,” he admits.
He continued to hone his craft in championships across Europe before getting his first taste of single-seater competitions as a 15-year-old. After two podium finishes in F4, more success soon followed. Piastri hacked his way up the slippery motorsport ladder with a Formula Renault championship title in 2019, an F3 championship in 2020 and an F2 championship title in 2021, which he won by more than 50 points. While most of us were frantically trying to master home-made sourdough and Zoom calls during Covid, Oscar Piastri was killing the competition and charging into contention for a Formula One seat. “I did everything I could to try and get into Formula One but it was a dream, not a goal, but that was until I got to F2 – then it was just one more step to the dream.”
“It was in a service station car park in the UK. So, it wasn’t the most glamorous place to be signing an F1 contract, but it was a very, very special feeling”
We haven’t even touched on Piastri’s ruthless side yet. That arrived in 2022, when he went from relative unknown to ubiquitous internet topic overnight. We’re talking memes galore, viral Twitter storms and plenty of headlines. And that’s all before he’d turned a wheel in anger in the sport. “Yeah, it was quite a complicated 12 months to get into F1,” he says, smiling awkwardly.
For context, throughout his remarkable rise through the ranks, Piastri had been a part of the Renault-Alpine academy since 2020, a team that had given him his first non-competitive spin in a Formula One car. In 2022, after winning his F2 Championship title, Piastri was promoted to become the Alpine F1 team’s reserve driver and, when seasoned champion Fernando Alonso got up and left Alpine in a surprise move to Aston Martin, the team assumed that Piastri would remain loyal and slot into the Spaniard’s seat. Only he didn’t.
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Publicly rejecting Alpine’s claims that he would be one of its 2023 drivers on Twitter, Piastri came out fighting and jumped ship to McLaren, which snapped him up with a signed contract, while axing fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo. Snake pit, soap opera or scandal – call it what you like, it’s just another day in the world’s fastest sport. You either keep up or get out, capiche?
“Signing my F1 contract was a very special thing. Even if there was some controversy around it, it was very, very special,” he admits. After all the drama, legal threats and global headlines, it was at a UK motorway services of all places where Piastri officially realised his dream. “It was in a service station car park in the UK, so it wasn’t the most glamorous place to be signing an F1 contract, but it was still a very, very special feeling.”
Although he’d proved he was a ruthless operator before reaching the track, Piastri was only just getting started. After all the hype, the Aussie needed to prove his worth and soon enough, he did just that. Two podiums – a third in Japan and a second-place finish in Qatar – arrived in his debut season, in which he finished ninth overall.
“I feel like I’ve been able to jump into F1 and get used to things reasonably quickly,” he admits. “I knew last year, when I got two podiums, that I couldn’t take it for granted.” Since then, the 23-year-old’s fortunes have gone from strength to strength, as have McLaren’s. At the start of the 2024 season, it was looking like another year of Red Bull-Max Verstappen domination was inevitable but between Piastri and his British teammate, Lando Norris, the pair have brought the papaya team back into contention.
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“I don’t think there’s been one ingredient to our success this season,” he explains. “Andrea Stella [McLaren’s Team Principal] has certainly been a major factor in the whole team’s success – he’s been an incredible leader for everybody, and myself definitely included in that. And Zak [Brown, McLaren Racing CEO] does an incredible job of keeping the team running well.
“This year, we’ve had a lot more opportunities but there’s definitely more progress for McLaren to make.” And Piastri wasn’t wrong. Just weeks after saying those words, the McLaren driver clinched his very first win in Formula One at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but it wasn’t quite the straightforward celebration of success he was looking forward to. Starting the race in second behind his teammate, Piastri overtook Norris on the first corner, leading the race until he was brought into the pit behind him mid-race. With his teammate now in the lead, Piastri was assured by the team that the lead would be handed back to him, but Norris put up a fight until the final few laps. Eventually relinquishing the lead, Piastri took the win but a rift between the two teammates had still been exposed.
“He’s definitely a tough teammate to go up against,” admits Piastri, “but I think that’s a good thing. You want to always compare yourself to the best.” While both drivers are still young, 25-year-old Norris has been McLaren’s frontman for the best part of five years. With a younger teammate in Piastri, the pair now find themselves battling it out, locked in what could quickly develop into a high-stakes, bitter rivalry.
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“If we’re fighting for first and second every weekend, then there’s always a little bit more tension, I guess.” While having two razor-sharp racing drivers is a dream problem for the team to have, individually, it can quickly turn toxic. “We’ve seen in the past, look at Lewis [Hamilton] and Nico [Rosberg], when you’re fighting for first and second, that’s when things can sometimes change a little bit. We’ve been in a position like that a few times now,” admits the Aussie. “It is difficult to have true friends on the grid, because at the end of the day, you’re trying to beat them all the time.”
That said, Piastri admits the pair have found time to set aside their differences and unite with the odd padel match in their home city of Monte Carlo. “We don’t hang out that much outside of the track – we don’t really have that much time – but we’ve played padel together a couple of times,” he says. “He’s not bad, but I think I’m better. We’re definitely not the best – the two Spaniards have most of the grid covered when it comes to padel.
“Fernando Alonso is very, very good, and Carlos Sainz is quite good as well, but I’ve heard that Carlos Sainz Senior would put most of the grid to shame.”
From padel to the podium, one thing is certain: Oscar Piastri is only just getting started when it comes to competing at the sharp end of the sport.
“Longer term, I want to win World Championships,” he says without hesitation. “That’s what we’re all here for, right?”
This article was featured in Issue 44 of Gentleman's Journal...
For more from the world of racing, read our interview with Formula One champion Jenson Button...
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