Why Piastri's F3 title was better than results suggested

Oscar Piastri grabbed a last-ditch FIA Formula 3 Championship crown in a thrilling title showdown at Mugello, pipping Theo Pourchaire by three points and team-mate Logan Sargeant by four. But he could so easily have had it all done and dusted before the field even arrived for the season-closing Tuscan Grand Prix support races.

And equally, he could so easily have lost it. That he didn't was testament to the skills of the series' best driver, for Piastri was a fully deserving champion.

Renault F1 Junior Piastri was one of two drivers in the Prema Racing line-up who were stepping up as reigning champions in the lower categories. While the Australian had won the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup, thanks largely to scintillating racecraft that rescued him from a couple of severe setbacks, team-mate Frederik Vesti had conquered the less competitive Formula Regional European Championship with Prema.

Alongside them was Sargeant, who was transferring from Carlin, where he'd endured an unsuccessful rookie season at FIA F3 level.

That immediately prompted a refocusing of ambitions from Prema, for a decade the class act of the third tier. For 2019, its maiden season in what used to be known as GP3, it had fielded its 2018 FIA F3 European Championship stars Robert Shwartzman and Marcus Armstrong, plus their former rival Jehan Daruvala.

They all had race-winning experience at this level, and it predictably ended with a Prema 1-2-3, headed by Shwartzman. For 2020, Prema was very light on FIA F3 smarts among its three cockpits.

"Honestly, with both of them [Piastri and Vesti] we were expecting to do a learning season, to be fighting for the top but as well learning, because F3 is a big step compared to the Renault or Regional car," admits Prema boss Rene Rosin.

"Both of them I was expecting an apprenticeship year, but on the other hand since the first test in Bahrain we saw that both of them could do a great season, fighting for the top. And coming out in Spielberg race one, Oscar won at his first race, and Frederik won at the second Austrian round, so immediately they were already there."

Indeed, Piastri won the season opener at the Red Bull Ring, yet he did so via a three-way first-corner clash - not his fault - that put scuffmarks all over his car but remarkably inflicted no damage. He was up and running, but was unable to add further to his tally of wins until the sixth event at Barcelona thanks to a maddening series of DRS glitches. This included a retirement on the first Silverstone weekend when the DRS stuck open, and two failures in qualifying at the follow-up round at the British track that restricted him to 11th on the grid.

While Piastri gained an enthusiastic following thanks to his amusing DRS tales on social media, Prema set to work trying to find the root of the problem. And Rosin claims that Piastri's record of zero front-row starts is an unfair reflection of the champion's qualifying prowess.

"He's a great racer, and I would say he's a very quick qualifier, but we were struggling with some technical issues that we found out after five or six weekends that compromised the team's performance," points out Rosin.

"The good point of Oscar was he always kept his head cool, he didn't overreact, he always maximised his potential, and that's what got him the championship at the end" Rene Rosin

"He was for example on pole in Silverstone, and then he lost DRS for the second set of tyres [hence the slide to 11th]. So he had times where he had the potential to start on pole position but then because of some issues outside of his control he didn't put everything together.

"Honestly it was frustrating for him, it was frustrating for the team. We tried to change everything whatever it was that was within our control. Unfortunately, after a certain point we had to say, 'Guys we cannot do anything more', and finally we got together with the technical guys of the series, we changed something else and finally we got the problem solved.

"But yes, it was a bit frustrating, but the good point of Oscar was he always kept his head cool, he didn't overreact, he always maximised his potential, and that's what got him the championship at the end."

While Piastri was struggling with his qualifying (and Rosin, while playing down that record, admits the Victorian "can still improve" in this discipline), Sargeant snared three successive mid-season poles, the foundation for a strong series of results.

Put it to Rosin that this could have been aided by his prior year of experience in the category, and he responds: "I think for sure experience was a part of it, but on the other hand his capabilities to nail everything on one lap are there, and you need to have that inside yourself. I think that it's also part of his characteristics."

But Sargeant's racecraft seemed to be wanting compared to Piastri's. The eventual champion's standouts included a charge from 15th to third at Monza, a brilliant fifth-to-first within four corners of the Barcelona reversed-grid race, and two tenacious second places at a wet Hungaroring, the first with massive floor damage from a spectacular early-race collision. That Monza drive came after a farcical grid penalty for blocking, imposed despite him doing his best to move out of the way.

Then, after the reversed-grid race at Monza, he was given a potentially far more damaging grid penalty for the Mugello finale for what appeared to be simply a racing incident with David Beckmann.

Piastri described the situation as "uncontrollable bullshit", and Rosin adds: "He got a grid penalty for Monza where honestly, where would he go? He was on a slow lap and he was trying to avoid the others. And then he got a grid penalty for Mugello for an accident that was not his fault."

Luckily for Piastri, a collision between his team-mates Vesti - who had endured a patchy mid-season that left him a little too much to do in the title fight - and Sargeant prevented the American from taking the points lead into Mugello. Even more luckily for Piastri, Sargeant was given his own grid penalty as he was deemed to be at fault.

Sargeant levelled the scores in the first race in Tuscany, as Piastri laboured from 16th to 11th, and the Floridian would start ahead of his rival for the finale. But a collision with Lirim Zendeli put Sargeant out, and Piastri did enough to hold off the surging Pourchaire for the title.

When considering how Sargeant lost out on the ultimate prize, it should be remembered that he really should have allowed Liam Lawson to repass him in race one at the Hungaroring. The post-race penalty given to Sargeant for his illegal outside-track-limits move on the Kiwi cost him more points than he lost the title by...

"Logan had all the cards to play in the championship," says Rosin of the final two weekends in Italy. "Both of Logan and Oscar would have deserved to win the championship. For Mugello, unfortunately what happened especially left him [Sargeant] a bit sour of the taste."

Pourchaire's form backs up the opinion of Piastri, who reckoned the compressed schedule as a result of COVID made the season less disadvantageous for rookies, simply because they scarcely stopped racing

The late-season dramas so nearly allowed Pourchaire to steal the title from the Prema trio. The French whippersnapper, just 16 years old when he took a beautiful win in the wet at the Hungaroring, stepped up with ART Grand Prix as the reigning German Formula 4 champion, and some of his drives were truly impressive - including a charge from 18th (following an early incident) to third in the reversed-grid race at Monza.

His runner-up championship position perhaps flattered him slightly in light of the late-season Prema dramas, but he is clearly a major talent.

Pourchaire's form also backs up the opinion of Piastri, who reckoned the compressed schedule - the nine rounds took place within 11 weekends - as a result of COVID made the season less disadvantageous for rookies, simply because they scarcely stopped racing.

Pourchaire looks nailed on to graduate to F2 with ART this season, while Piastri is already confirmed at Prema. Sargeant, too, seems likely to go F2, and has tested with Campos Racing, while the grapevine indicates that Vesti has been snaffled away from Prema by ART for a second season of FIA F3. That should add some spice to what is shaping up to be a tasty Prema-versus-ART war in 2021-spec FIA F3.