Why is Oscar Piastri F1's most sought-after rookie?

Remember Nico Hulkenberg winning the GP2 Series title at the first attempt in 2009? After that triumph, seven seasons went by without a rookie claiming honours in Formula 1’s top junior category. Since then, three have done it in five seasons of the rebranded FIA Formula 2 Championship.

Charles Leclerc ended that wait with his searing streak to the 2017 F2 title with Prema Racing. A year later, George Russell’s efforts with ART Grand Prix brought him to F1 with the F2 crown ahead of fellow rookie Lando Norris and second-year racer Alex Albon. And we all know what they have achieved in the top tier.

In the years after that epic 2018 F2 season, no superstars have followed on in the same manner – with one exception, all while shining as brightly as those named above and with a junior CV to better those of Leclerc, Russell and Norris.

That man is Oscar Piastri. The 21-year-old Australian became F1’s summer story following Fernando Alonso’s abandonment of Alpine for Aston Martin. Piastri will now make his F1 debut with McLaren in 2023 on the back of his title hat-trick in three seasons from Formula Renault Eurocup, FIA Formula 3 and F2, and 2022 as Alpine’s development driver and reserve racer for the blue team and McLaren. Those achievements are the central answering thrust to the question posed by the headline. But, as ever in F1, the full picture encompasses so much more.

Piastri can be considered F1’s most sought-after rookie because McLaren wanted another team’s investment, and the almighty row that followed given Alpine’s desire to promote him as Alonso’s replacement. The saga went as far as the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board, which has only ever been required to pass judgment twice since being established in the wake of Michael Schumacher’s Jordan/Benetton switch in 1991. The two cases were BAR racer Jenson Button’s famous and ultimately failed attempt to rejoin Williams for 2005, and 2007 GP2 champion Timo Glock being jointly claimed by Sauber and Toyota, which he ultimately raced for, ahead of 2008. Max Verstappen was highly prized by both Red Bull and Mercedes in his blazing European F3 season back in 2014, but the two sides never went to court…

McLaren was prepared to do so for Piastri for two reasons. The first: it was sure it alone possessed a valid contract for the Melbourne racer’s 2023 services. The second: it was done with Piastri’s compatriot Daniel Ricciardo after one and a half underwhelming seasons, despite that Monza 2021 triumph.

Piastri will make his F1 debut on the back of his title hat-trick in three seasons from Formula Renault Eurocup, FIA Formula 3 and F2

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

McLaren had to act after Ricciardo, continuing to struggle with corner-entry braking, had returned just 11 points in six races against Lando Norris’s 39 and another Imola podium. It had foreshadowed its decision with boss Zak Brown dropping big hints that Ricciardo’s future was uncertain while at this year’s Indianapolis 500 at the same time as his F1 squad was in Monaco. Then, by early June, Piastri entered into a preliminary deal with McLaren, which a month later became a 2023 race drive when Ricciardo was effectively bought out of the remaining year of his contract.

“The reason I wanted to get Oscar on board is because he has shown in his junior career that he is a very talented driver with a lot of potential,” McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl explained after the CRB’s early September ruling. “In terms of personality, he has everything he needs in order to be successful in F1. He is young, fresh, full of energy.”

The McLaren deal confounded initial paddock expectations. Given how both sides were talking, and the fact that Alpine was offering an LMDh drive for his next post-F1 career, an Alonso extension was expected. With Esteban Ocon signed until 2024, this would leave Piastri without a race seat at the team where he had become a junior two and a half years earlier as a reward for winning the 2019 Renault Eurocup title. Alpine planned to loan him to Williams for two years – similar to Russell’s apprenticeship with the British team – before offering a 2025 race seat. But Piastri and his management weren’t keen.

For a long time, Alpine held all the cards, happy with the ‘good problem’ of having three brilliant drivers available for its two F1 seats

Piastri has been looked after by Mark Webber and his JAM Sports Management company since the start of 2020 (the arrangement established from a mutual trainer relationship late in 2019), and his camp had grown tired of Alpine’s dithering over his and Alonso’s future.

As we know now from the CRB’s ruling, this meant Alpine couldn’t, as it believed thanks to its unsigned ‘Terms Sheet’ lodged with the panel, simply slot Piastri in when Alonso walked. But the problems stemmed back to late 2021 too.

That was his stunning F2 rookie title triumph – a campaign that can be considered a one-off for the championship thanks to its three-races-per-round format and unpopular large calendar gaps. The latter point meant Piastri’s title coronation came in mid-December, with all the 2022 F1 seats by then filled after Alfa Romeo signed Zhou Guanyu (third in the 2021 F2 championship) for that last open slot.

At the same time, Alpine was yet to officially firm up the reserve-driver role Piastri was prepared to accept for one season only. For a long time, Alpine held all the cards, happy with the ‘good problem’ of having three brilliant drivers available for its two F1 seats. Then, when Alonso made his call, it discovered its hand was ultimately left half-empty. But, before the CRB had ruled, and even in a media call made the day after Alonso’s hiring was announced by Aston, Alpine was openly questioning Piastri’s loyalty as rumours of his McLaren contract leaked.

Piastri's camp had grown tired of Alpine’s dithering over his and Alonso’s future

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“If everyone is true to the agreements that they signed only a few months ago, we should be able to move forward,” Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer said. He would later infamously state he wished Piastri “had a bit more integrity”.

All this legal-wrangling and politicking is the result of many believing Piastri to be a ‘once in a generation talent’. It’s a cliche the achievements of Verstappen, Leclerc and co debunk, but its essence remains. Plus, there had been other potential suitors, including Red Bull after Piastri’s two years racing with the Arden squad (founded by Christian Horner’s family) in British Formula 4 and his first Eurocup campaign – this we know given recent comments by Horner. At the same time, the current crop of F3 and F2 drivers doesn’t possess a highly touted star now that Theo Pourchaire’s previously similar momentum has stalled.

Piastri ultimately beat the Frenchman to the 2020 F3 title, when they were both rookies. The COVID-19 pandemic meant that the campaign’s nine rounds spanned 11 weekends. This regular running boosted their chances of adapting to the famously tricky GP3 machines on which the new FIA F3 cars are based, plus the fragile Pirelli rubber that F1’s support categories run, which helped create the post-Hulkenberg rookie success drought.

But Piastri’s immediate F2 success proved his prized adaptability, alongside coping just as well with the long calendar gaps that reversed the squeezed nature of his F3 running in 2020. That year he also fixed an F3 weakness – qualifying pace (which was admittedly hampered by repeated DRS problems), to go from zero 2020 poles to five in his second straight year as part of the Prema fold – shades of Leclerc’s progress between his rookie campaign in F1 with Sauber and his first season at Ferrari. By the time Piastri left the squad, which also ran Leclerc to a rookie F2 title, he’d done in two years what he and Webber had expected to take four, leaving him feeling, “I have run out of things to prove myself with.”

Another key Piastri strength that added to his flourishing reputation is his racecraft. A series of charges from lowly grid positions characterised his F3 title triumph, but it was also evident in FRenault and F2.

The strong-minded and confident Piastri had proved his toughness by making the trip over to Europe in 2016 as a 15-year-old (his father Chris accompanied him for the first six months before Piastri finished his studies at boarding school when Chris returned to run his car-tuning business). His self-confidence – although ultimately a relaxed figure, cutting jokes at a birthday bash hosted by Alpine back in April in Melbourne, where Webber, his father and Alpine sporting boss Alan Permane gave glowing speeches – impressed McLaren.

Piastri is going to have to rely on that in 2023. His 3500km of running in 2018 Renault and 2021 Alpine F1 machinery at tracks across the world (including Silverstone, Red Bull Ring, Monza and Austin from the F1 calendar), and large F1 simulator experience level fine-tuning set-ups for Alonso and Ocon, will be very handy. So too will his time spent studiously learning how the race weekends go from their perspective while embedded as a reserve.

Piastri has 3500km of running in 2018 Renault and 2021 Alpine F1 machinery at tracks across the world behind him

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

His ‘Best work experience ever!’ sign from the Alpine pitwall at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix continued the cheeky and popular presence he cultivated on social media during his junior rise. This he will share with Norris, but the Briton’s form presents the biggest risk to Piastri’s well-deserved reputation from 2023 onwards, given how Norris has seen off eight-time GP winner Ricciardo.

Piastri’s reputation has already been stained at best and damaged at worst by the McLaren/Alpine saga. This is chiefly down to his ‘This is wrong’ tweet following Alpine’s announcement that it intended him to be Alonso’s replacement. Piastri was blameless in the contract affair, but the saga that followed will forever be remembered and was indeed gently mocked in Albon’s contract extension announcement at Williams the following day.

There’s also no doubt that Alpine comes out of this summer’s saga looking worse, despite CEO Laurent Rossi’s fury

The decision to snub Williams and Alpine may be one to regret should things not work out at McLaren. That may also be a too-pessimistic position for someone with such junior success, but the fact remains that the CRB drama has piled on pressure for a driver unproven at the top level.

Piastri can at least, however, reflect on how McLaren represents a clear step up in terms of where he had been set to start his F1 career before Alonso’s Alpine exit. But his soon-to-be new team is currently behind Alpine in the constructors’ championship and must climb back up the path it had previously been treading so well since its split with Honda.

There’s also no doubt that Alpine comes out of this summer’s saga looking worse, despite CEO Laurent Rossi’s fury. This, then, will be the story of Piastri’s latest attempt at a stunning rookie campaign: to prove his supporters right and critics wrong, cope with Norris and his years of knowledge in the tricky McLaren package, and defeat a spurned Alpine.

He has the skills, temperament and results to succeed – soon comes the time to do it.

Piastri has the skills, temperament and results to succeed

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images