OSCAR PIASTRI

Mclaren’s new Australian star spent a year on the sidelines as Alpine’s reserve driver after winning the 2021 Formula 2 championship. No wonder he’s so keen to go racing again…

Who was your sporting hero when you were growing up?

Good question. I actually don’t have a specific one. I try to draw inspiration from different areas. So people like [Ayrton] Senna obviously, [Alain] Prost… I’ve had the privilege of meeting Alain, throughout my time [in Renault/alpine’s young driver programme] in the last few years. Getting to know him in person has been really cool. People like Lewis [Hamilton] in the past few years, he’s been impressive, plus Max [Verstappen] recently. Outside of motorsport Michael Jordan is a good one.

Do you have any superstitions or perhaps a specific routine before you get into the car?

I don’t have one. I’m pretty low on my superstitions, although I generally like to get in the car from the same side just because I find it more comfortable.

Obviously, getting to Formula 1 has been your dream and now you’re here – what’s it like?

Yeah, I feel good. I feel pretty calm and relaxed. It’s obviously been quite a while waiting for me. I’m trying to get the most out of myself and the car so from that aspect, not much is different. But, yeah, knowing that I’m in the pinnacle of motorsport now is a very special feeling.

You had to spend a season not actually racing. Do you feel it would have been better to have gone straight to F1 from F2, or has that season of working in the background been beneficial?

Working as a reserve driver definitely taught me a few things. So it wasn’t a wasted year by any means. Naturally, as a racing driver, I just want to be racing as much as I can.

And ideally going straight from F2 to F1 probably would have been better. But there’s no point complaining about it – it’s in the past now. It’s what happened. I’m here now on the grid. There’s definitely some areas, mostly off-track, where I learned a lot last year and I think that’s helped with my wider introduction to the world of F1. Not necessarily the driving but everything else. So I feel like that’s an area I’m quite comfortable with.

How much have you been looking forward to getting back to racing?

Yeah, it’s super exciting for me. It’s been a massive motivation boost, I would say, giving me something to focus on. It’s been going really well with everyone at Mclaren so far. I’m feeling very comfortable in the team.

The pre-season test was your first chance to drive the MCL60 so you were obviously very preoccupied with engineering matters. Then straight into the first race weekend. How long before you can start to just enjoy the driving?

I’ve been pretty busy trying to learn how this car works and how to extract the most from it. I think it’s always a nice mindset to be in, sort of not really thinking about the emotion of it and stuff like that. I feel like throughout the last year, being a reserve driver, it’s been a bit of a soft entry into F1. So this year, it feels like it’s maybe a bit less of a step than if I had come straight from F2. I feel like I’m fully in business mode. Of course, it’s pretty cool to be out there.

THIS YEAR IT FEELS LIKE IT’S MAYBE A BIT LESS OF A STEP THAN IF I HAD COME STRAIGHT FROM F2

It’s been widely reported the MCL60 was ‘frozen’ around launch time and a

new direction taken in terms of where the developmental path will go. What has been the expectation in terms of the package you have right now? What have the debriefs been like, in terms of what can be used and where you can take the car?

It’s a bit difficult to say still, because we don’t 100% know where we are relative to others. We’re about where we expected to be. We’ve got some things in the pipeline that will hopefully be coming soon. So that’s a good step for us. But, yeah, I think our targets from the launch are about where we’ve ended up.

So, finally, what is a realistic target for you for this season?

I think putting numbers on our expectations is difficult. And, like we’ve said, we’ve got a few more things coming in development. So hopefully we can become a bit quicker, early in the season. So where we’re starting might not necessarily be where we are in the middle of the year or at the end of the year. So, for me, I’ll try and gain more experience, and feel like I’m getting close to the limit. I’ll just try and do the best job that I can, obviously there’s going to be an element of rust. So I think just limiting the mistakes, trying to do the best that I can is the aim at the moment.