How F1’s new cool customer vindicated his McLaren gamble

“Yeah, not the best pace I’ve ever displayed in the world, but I’ll enjoy the trophy for now.”

No screams, no gasps, no unintelligible exclamations, no tearful hyperbole for the commercial rights holder to splash across its social channels. Just the usual calm and measured message from Oscar Piastri to his engineer on the team radio – only this time it was in response to securing his first-ever F1 podium, at Suzuka, one of the most challenging tracks on the calendar.

To be fair, there was also a bit of a “woohoo”, but it was more befitting of getting a tricky pub quiz question right than reaching a career milestone. Kimi Raikkonen might appear an impulsive extrovert at times compared with McLaren’s Australian rookie.

“He’s very methodical,” Mark Webber, Piastri’s compatriot and manager, tells GP Racing. “The way he won all the championships... he’s just very clinical. Very clinical. And so that level of sophistication and class, and incredible humbleness too, the calmness that he displays, is what puts him in good stead.

“He has to still learn a lot. That’s obvious. You saw that in Suzuka, you know – Lando [Norris] has five years [in F1], Max eight years. All the guys he’s racing, they all have so much experience. And that’s great for him to race against them because he’s a big sponge, and he will continue to learn how to do things better in the future.

“And that level of composure to learn is reflected on the comms on the radio. It’s something that seems to come naturally to him. And, I say, it’s a beautiful burden. It’s a beautiful burden to carry. It’s a nice thing to have in your top pocket.”

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These are all traits familiar to those who have known Piastri for a long time. His natural talent allows him to adapt quickly to new machinery, as evidenced by his triumphs in his rookie seasons in Formula 3 and Formula 2. But his main asset, according to those who worked with him during his junior years, is his ability to stay calm and improve himself.

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Piastri has a key ally in his corner in manager Webber

“We had a difficult Barcelona the pre-season test in Formula 2,” recalls René Rosin, Piastri’s team boss at Prema. “We were really struggling on day one and day two, but I never saw him stressed or anxious to achieve a certain lap time. He was just calm, working with the engineers. This is something that always impressed me about him.

“Other drivers, even good ones, when things aren’t clicking straight away, they start getting anxious and eventually, they start to overdrive. He was always cool and calm.

“For sure, he feels pressure, but he’s just able to manage it. He’s got quite a cool personality that makes him not be affected by that pressure, at least from what you see from the outside. But because he’s also very intelligent, he’s able to reflect and analyse stuff, which is very important when there’s a change.”

"The year out was completely unacceptable. Just completely unacceptable. There was just, unfortunately, a lack of education. And that was their problem. They were even nervous to give him a Friday" Mark Webber on Piastri's 2022 as Alpine reserve

Pandemic pandemonium

Piastri’s junior career looks perfect on paper, but it hasn’t been easy. Preparations for his debut season in Formula 3 were disrupted by the pandemic – and the championship itself was eventually compressed into a three-month period from July to September. The campaign was hampered by a DRS problem, which Prema resolved by mid-season, but which had still managed to ruin some of his qualifying sessions – and when he finally secured the title, it was largely because he had scored points more consistently than his main rivals.

PLUS: Why Piastri's F3 title was better than results suggested

It was Piastri’s 2021 F2 campaign that left no doubt as to the exceptional nature of his talent. His team-mate Robert Shwartzman was the favourite, having stayed in F2 for a second year after finishing fourth in the previous season. But Piastri started the season by consistently scoring points and put himself in contention for the title, then was in a class of his own in the latter half of the year.

“From Silverstone onwards, I raised my hands and said, ‘Guys, this is incredible,’” says Rosin. “The quali lap he did in Silverstone... We were looking at each other, like, will there be a ‘lap time deleted’ message because of track limits or something? And after that he won every feature race: Monza, Sochi, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi, all from pole position. He was just outstanding.”

It’s one of those occasions when words alone can’t tell the whole story.

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Piastri put together one of the greatest junior single-seater records together but it didn't automatically land him on the F1 grid

“Wow,” Webber brings his fists towards his temples and unclenches them swiftly, mimicking an explosion, to illustrate how he felt about Piastri’s F2 season. “You keep in mind, some people go from Formula 3 and do these last few races in F2 the year before to get ready for the next season. He didn’t have the chance to do that. Because we didn’t really have the budget. 

“So, I had to tell him, ‘Oscar, sorry, man. You’re gonna have to learn in the first few races.’ And he did. But when he got on a roll, he just destroyed that field. Five poles in a row, all these feature race wins, it was incredible.”

Not everyone was as impressed. Alpine, for which Piastri had been a junior driver from the start of 2020, signed a new three-year contract with Esteban Ocon in June 2021, confirming that there was no race seat for the Australian in its F1 team for the foreseeable future. Piastri’s reward for winning the title was a place on the bench and the now-legendary ‘term sheet’ offered to him in lieu of a proper contract.

Since Piastri racked up his biggest victories after Alpine had already decided on its line-up, there is an argument that this run of form worked against him rather than for him. But Webber doesn’t buy it.

“The year out was completely unacceptable. Just completely unacceptable,” he says. “There was just, unfortunately, a lack of education. And that was their problem. They were even nervous to give him a Friday. I mean, can you believe it? It’s just extraordinary. So that was really heartbreaking.

“I mean, I was explaining things in ’21 to the people involved [at Alpine] in the middle of the year, at Silverstone. You know, ‘Come on!’ – ‘No, it’s OK, it’s OK.’ And then... the clock ticks and, before you realise, it [the window of opportunity] is over.”

What happened next is well-documented, as Piastri and Webber found themselves at the centre of the craziest silly season in recent years. Having ended up not just without a concrete plan for the future from Alpine, but crucially without a binding contract, the Aussies went looking for alternatives in the summer of 2022.

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

Alpine was guiding Piastri towards Williams before its three drivers became one driver in 2022

Risky business

The McLaren deal was a straightforward one for the team. Although Zak Brown had to agree to a substantial payout to Daniel Riccardo, it wasn’t as wild a move as some had felt at the time. After all, the team would have paid Riccardo his millions anyway. The choice was between watching him continue to try to rediscover his old self or forcing a change. The chance to snatch one of the hottest young talents of recent years away from a direct rival, without having invested a penny in his development up until then, was in fact a no-brainer.

But for Piastri himself it was a risk. It was reported at the time that Alpine had tried to secure him a place at Williams – for Piastri to spend a couple of seasons in a lower-ranked team. This route – a stealth baptism in a less exposed position – may have had its advantages. George Russell used his three years at Grove to pave his way to Mercedes. And Webber himself had, after all, started his career with Minardi, as had Fernando Alonso.

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But you can understand Webber and his protégé growing frustrated with the way Alpine was handling its “nice problem” of having three drivers for two seats and waiting for something concrete to – literally – come out of the blue. Yet, the McLaren option had its obvious perils.

"Oscar is very calm and focused on himself – he’s not affected by what’s happening around him. There is no external noise in his brain" Andrea Stella

Not only did Piastri have to reconcile himself to the fact that he was targeting his compatriot’s seat, it also meant settling into a garage next door to Lando Norris, who’d been destroying Ricciardo. A huge risk, even for a talent of Piastri’s calibre. A few years earlier Stoffel Vandoorne’s F1 career had been ruined by Fernando Alonso in the very same garage. But none of that frightened Webber, and he claims that it wasn’t even on Piastri’s mind.

“Every time you put Oscar in deep water he delivers,” Webber shrugs. “It’s Formula 1, he was ready. And people thought we had a lot of choices. We didn’t, actually. And McLaren were fantastic. They were very clear, and Oscar just loved that. ‘OK, here’s someone that really wants me.’ Easy decision.

“Of course, Daniel was having a very tough time, and if it wasn’t Oscar replacing Daniel, it was someone else. Oscar said at the time, of course, [taking a seat from] his fellow Australian, it’s… there’s not many of us to have raced in F1. But what can you say? I mean... it was a McLaren decision, and in the end the right one.”

There is pressure on every rookie in F1. Needing to perform against the best in the world, having to learn how to work with hundreds of engineers instead of a dozen, and dealing with the greater public attention. On top of all this, in Piastri’s case, it also entailed going head-to-head with the fast, experienced and embedded-in-the-team Norris while under greater scrutiny because of the controversial split with Alpine.

Photo by: McLaren

The young Australian came into F1 under even more pressure than a regular rookie

As Team Enstone suddenly found itself with one driver instead of three, Piastri was publicly accused of a “lack of loyalty”. There was a lot to withstand. But McLaren discovered the same measured and absorbent driver that Webber and Rosin are talking about. And a very calm character, too.

Letting the performances speak

“It’s a big advantage,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella tells GP Racing about Piastri’s apparent unflappability. “It’s an advantage because he can keep himself in the condition in which he performs the best without getting too excited or too depressed.

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“These personal qualities Oscar is showing, the capacity to stay in the space in which the driver performs the best without getting overexcited or demoralised, are a real strength of his. And this makes the difference in some situations, for example, when it comes to putting the lap together in qualifying or when it comes to staying calm if somebody overtakes him at the start. For a rookie, this is quite impressive.

“Oscar is very calm and focused on himself – he’s not affected by what’s happening around him. There is no external noise in his brain. He doesn’t dissipate or dilute his talent into things that aren’t useful or functional, and that was apparent to us relatively early on.

“We’ve been impressed by how he assesses where he is in terms of performance: knowing what’s working and what isn’t when it comes to the car and his driving. He’s been able to identify these weaknesses and collaborate with his engineers on what needs to be improved and changed – he can then go out onto the track and do it. For me, this is the purest definition of talent.”

There’s no question now as to whether the right choice was made, both by the team and Piastri’s camp. Front row and a ‘podium’ in the sprint at Spa, and a sprint victory and second place in the main race in Qatar are highlights representative of what has been a wholly impressive rookie season.

“It’s been a very special year,” says Webber. “I think we had nine wet weekends so far. For a rookie, there are so many opportunities to make errors. At Spa, he had his first dry laps in qualifying and then it was a front row for the sprint. Yeah, he’s doing just fine.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Piastri has picked up grand prix podiums, a sprint pole and a sprint win in his rookie F1 campaign

“I think unfortunately, for all of us in the industry, we’ve got quickly used to this abnormally high standard because we’re doing it with him without big bells and whistles. He just wants to keep his head down. And we do the talking on the track.

“You know, one of the most incredible situations I saw this year was when Lewis Hamilton went to him in Monza, after the race, before the scales [to apologise for a crash]. That is really an ultimate feather in Oscar’s cap, to say that this guy... for Lewis to give you 20 seconds, it’s the Michael Jordan of our sport.

“That’s a huge endorsement for a rookie. He doesn’t need to do that. Classy of Lewis, of course, and not unusual for him. But they’re the big little things that I notice, that the industry, and his peers, they know he’s here. He’s arrived.”

"He knows we have to do the work, we have to do the talking in the car. And that’s what he’s doing. He talks in the car" Mark Webber

Webber is under no illusion that the biggest challenge is somehow already behind them; he knows better than most how unpredictable F1 is. And if anything, he feels it’s his duty to help Piastri with whatever curveballs come next.

“I mean, I had other opportunities to manage drivers,” he says. “But I don’t need to be here, [in the F1 paddock]. But when Oscar does what he does, I have to be here now. Because it’s my commitment to him as well. And I told that to the people we work with. When something like this happens to a special talent like that – there’s this responsibility to commit to him as well. That’s what I’m doing.

“I think it’s very important we don’t get carried away. It looks like he’s doing it effortlessly. He isn’t. He’s working hard. He never said to himself that he’d arrived, of course. And after Suzuka did we hear him say that he’s arrived? No. Not at all.

“He’s so far from the finished product. Of course. He knows it. He’s still been very humble and working hard. He’s a personable guy. Very economical with his words. I’m not saying he’s a robot. He’s not. Oscar is not that. But he knows we have to do the work, we have to do the talking in the car. And that’s what he’s doing. He talks in the car.”

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

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