Autosport 2021 Top 50: #23 Oscar Piastri

On his move up into F2 after successive titles in Formula Renault and F3, big things were expected of Oscar Piastri, but he surely exceeded expectations with his supreme 2021 campaign.

After failing to score a single pole position in F3, he became the qualifying king in F2, and his ever-impressive racecraft was on display too.

Apart from a wobbly start in Bahrain, where he finished 19th following a collision, Piastri took a podium in every feature race on his march to the crown, and amassed six wins in total.

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Goes into 2022 as the Alpine F1 reserve driver and will surely be in the running for a 2023 race seat.

Prema on Piastri

Oscar Piastri had a stunning debut season in Formula 2, upstaging 2022 Alfa Romeo Formula 1 driver Guanyu Zhou and his more experienced Prema team-mate Robert Shwartzman to win his third consecutive junior series title and secure an F1 reserve role at Alpine next year.

The Australian hotshot asserted himself early on as Prema’s best hope for the title, rather than 2020’s highest returnee and his predecessor as FIA Formula 3 champion Shwartzman, and was never headed after hitting the front of the pack at Silverstone.

Team boss Rene Rosin says Piastri has done a “remarkable job” to emulate the feat of its last rookie champion (Charles Leclerc in 2017). Although his talents were well-known to the Italian outfit, having won the 2020 F3 title with Prema, Rosin explains that his achievement “is something incredible” – especially in a season that featured lengthy gaps between rounds, and a revamped format of three races, including two reversed grid sprints, per weekend.

Piastri was a convincing champion in his rookie year, seeing off the challenge of Zhou

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

“For sure, his consistency, his approach, has been an important part of the result,” he says. “He’s been able to adapt in a championship that I would definitely rate very difficult for the type of format [and] having this big, big gap, especially for a rookie, a lot of waiting time.

“But I will say he has done a remarkable job. His consistency – being able to come out from the difficult situation even when he doesn't know the circuit, being quick to learn the circuit in free practice to be okay in quali – is the very strong point for the season.”

In following Leclerc and George Russell (2018 with ART Grand Prix) as the only rookie champions in F2, Piastri is in good company. And although the 20-year-old is without a race seat for next season, Rosin is optimistic about his chances of getting a coveted seat in future.

“After winning Formula 3 and fighting for winning Formula 2, the guy is ready to step up in Formula 1,” he said. “Unfortunately, how the format is, how the championship has been split through the season, finishing on 12 December in Abu Dhabi is quite late.

“I think that he will have quite a lot to do as Alpine’s reserve driver and for sure Alpine will do the right choice for him because he's a driver that deserves to be in Formula 1.”