When Oscar Piastri was still small, the stories that his parents read to him were allowed to have one subject. “Books about cars” Wilde Oscar, his father Chris told at the end of 2021 at the Sydney Morning Herald. “He knew exactly how fast they were and the number of horsepower.”
In his orange-black McLaren, Piaastri has 1,000 hp under his right foot twenty years later. Two weeks ago he won the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. It was Piastri’s third victory in the first five races of 2025 – a triumph that first led him in the lead of the world championship. In his third F1 season, 24-year-old Australian seems to be the main candidate to take the world title from Max Verstappen for the time being.
After his win in Jeddah, Piastri appeared in front of the TV cameras without a shred of excitement in his voice, and with only a smile around his lips. More the expression of someone who has just seen a nice video pass by in his timeline than from an athlete who finally became the number one in the world after years of hard work.
That undercooling is Piastri’s trademark, a characteristic that can help him well in his attempt to hold the lead and thus become the first Australian world champion since Alan Jones in 1980.
Just right
Because the pressure is huge. Piastri is a super talent with an impressive list of honor in the classes under Formula 1, Podium finishes in his debut year on the highest stage, victories in his second season. And now a title hunt in his third. To really become a champion, he can hardly afford any mistakes. He takes on his experienced teammate Lando Norris and four -time champion Verstappen, the best rider of the moment. The rest of the season, round after round, each braking point and each steering movement will have to be just right.
Such situations do not quickly impress Piastri. He says he is hyper -competitive, but people sometimes forget that, “I think because of my calmness,” he said last year.
He is there whenever, hardly makes any mistakes. You need that for the championship
Piastri already showed that peace in 2023 during his first F1 year. During the Sprintrace in Qatar he rode the lead with a few more laps. His first victory shifted in an F1 car-but in his mirrors the that year unbeatable Verstappen quickly came closer. Nerve -racking? “To be honest, I was relaxed,” Piastri said afterwards. He kept Verstappen behind him and won.
The contrast with teammate Lando Norris is great in that regard. Norris is very fast, but the mental side of racing is his weak spot. Last year, when the McLarens were increasingly able to participate in the victories, Norris lost many points through errors, which often followed open self -doubt.
Also this year, now that McLaren has built the fastest car for the time being, Norris is not feeling well. He feels insecure. In Jeddah that became painfully clear: Norris lost control during qualifying, crashed in the wall And had no chance for the victory in advance.
Boarding school in England
For the Melbourne born Piastri it started with a radiographically controlled car. Father Chris had taken it as a surprise from a business trip. The six -year -old Oscar loved it. When he participated in a race with the cart, he defeated men who were four, five times as old. Three years later he rode in a kart for the first time. Piastri’s father had “never seen a child with such a big grin on his face.” Oscar soon knew he wanted to become F1 driver.
That is not easy for an Australian. Formula 1 is a European sport, so talents from other continents have to move. Piastri too: at the age of fourteen he came to England. The first six months his father was with him, then he had to harvest it as a student at an expensive boarding school in Hertford, England.
Piastri’s racing career started to get a lot of papers. Where a season of go -karting in Australia has already cost tens of thousands of euros, the amounts per year for the Formula Renault and the Formula 4, and ultimately more than a million for Formula 2. The entire path to Formula 1 cost between 3 and 3.5 million euros, calculated the Sydney Morning Herald.
Father Chris Piastri, owner of a company that develops software with which ‘normal’ cars can be performed, was a good part. Sponsors and Renault, which Piastri recorded in his F1 talent program, financed the rest.
Piastri paid back his patron with his performance on the track. In 2020 he won the Formula 3 championship, a year later he crushed the competition in Formula 2. Both times he did it directly in his first year-what everything says about his adaptability.
That adaptability is, in addition to its stress resistance, perhaps Piastri’s most important asset. Racing drááit to adjust: on different cars, but also to the job conditions and tire grip, which change continuously during the race. Almost always the best F1 drivers are also those who hardly need time to get used to it and get up immediately. Top drivers such as Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and Verstappen only needed a few laps to find the limit of their car and were successful in their F1 career very early. As far as his rapid rise is concerned, Piastri can already join them.
His success in the lower classes also did not go unnoticed in the F1 world. Alpine, the F1 team of Renault, where Piastri had become a reserve induster after his F2 title, thought he had recorded the star of the future in Piastri. On August 2, 2022 it announced him as a racing driver for 2023. Piaastri disrupted the festive moment a little later. “I understand that Alpine has issued a press release without my permission stating that I will be driving for them next year. That’s not true,” he tweeted“I did not sign a contract with Alpine for 2023.”
It turned out: Piastri had already concluded an agreement with McLaren a month earlier. The driver and his management immediately got a lot of stick with Alpine. Quite a bit of fuss for a rider who had not covered a meter in Formula 1, but according to his mother Nicole, Piastri showed himself from his phlegmatic side. Just before he placed his tweet, Piastri had sent her a message. “He said: Mom, this is going to happen, don’t worry about it. It is all under control,” Nicole Piastri said in a podcast. “He was pretty calm.”
Later, the Commission for Contractual Disputes of Autosportbond FIA showed that Alpine not a valid contract Had with Piastri. A crucial turn in his career. Whereas Alpine still forces in the middle bracket three years later, McLaren is now the best team in Formula 1.
Reverse on the grass
At the same time as McLaren, Piastri has also improved itself. At first he often fell back in races due to tire wear; Now Piastri knows how to drive quickly and be careful with the rubber. And next to it he was, he admitted last year in a podcastnot constant enough in his debut year. “There was quite a difference of racing weekend to race weekend,” said Piastri.
Now that is very different. Piastri was not yet catching on major mistakes. In front of his own audience in Melbourne, he shot off the track while he was second, but he could not do much about it: a downpour had erupted while Piastri rode on dry weather tires. He then carefully drove for a cheering grandstand backwards from the grassafterwards to fight back with daring catch -up actions to a place in the points.
Then Piastri won in China, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and took the cup home from Japan for third place. Piastri will have to hold on that constantness, said Verstappen After the race in Jeddah. “He is there whenever, hardly makes any mistakes. And you need that if you want to fight for the championship.”
