Oscar Piastri: A champion of the future

Oscar Piastri in the McLaren paddock (Image: Getty)

21-year-old Oscar Piastri is one of the newest members on the Formula One grid. Piastri will be joining as McLaren’s second driver aiding Lando Norris as they fight back to the top of the championships.

The young Australian has been a hot topic in the world of motorsport for many years due to his very successful junior career that some will say was impossible.

He started his career with karting in 2011 after racing remote controlled cars in competitions. He was quite successful in his karting career; finishing third place in the IAME International Final – X30 Junior, followed by a second place finish in the 52nd Australian National Sprint Kart Championship in 2014 - Junior Clubman, and finally in 2015 where he finished third place in the Australian Kart Championship – KF3.

Piastri moved from karting to the junior formula series in 2017, with his highest achievement being second in the F4 British Championship in his debut year.

The young Australian was then promoted to Formula Renault, and this is where his ‘rise to glory’ began. Piastri joined the team in 2019, winning in his rookie season. This was followed by a promotion in 2020 to Formula 3, where he also won in his first year. In 2021, he made the step up to Formula 2 in which Piastri accomplished the impossible. He won three championships back-to-back, all in his first year of the category.

Piastri’s very dominant junior career fashioned him as a favourite to many fans worldwide as well as multiple team principals in Formula 1, including Christian Horner who stated: “There was an opportunity for Red Bull to look at him at the time and we didn’t take up that option, which is something that I regret.”

Oscar Piastri’s career in the junior series was that of a superstar which took the world by surprise and as such, his entry into Formula 1 was one which was unlike anything seen before in sports history.

After the end of the 2021 Formula 2 series, Piastri got employed by Alpine as their reserve driver, a role he was only in for a year before being signed by McLaren as their second driver for the 2023 season.

Piastri in the McLaren car ahead of next season (Image: Getty)

However, his move from Alpine to McLaren was not that simple. Piastri was in contract with Alpine to stay as their reserve driver for at least two seasons. However, in summer 2022, Alpine’s main driver Fernando Alonso announced that he was leaving the team to join Aston Martin for the 2023 season. Alpine then turned to Piastri and offered him the main driver role. Despite this, McLaren had already pinched the young Australian and were in discussions.

Alpine, fearing the loss of both Alonso and Piastri, decided to make an unprofessional announcement that the Australian would be driving for them in 2023 onwards but this was proved wrong by Piastri who posted a statement.

Piastri said: “I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.”

The statement shocked fans all over the world as never before has an F1 team misled millions of people to a scale of this size. Alpine followed this by taking Piastri and McLaren to the Contract Recognition Board (CRB) to argue that only their contract was valid and legal. The CRB unanimously voted and ruled in the favour of McLaren’s contract with Piastri stating that ‘the only contract which was valid was that between McLaren and Piastri’.

McLaren has signed Piastri on a multi-year contract starting in 2023. Piastri’s successful junior career makes fans and McLaren believe that he will be competitive and hopefully one day win a World Championship. Will Piastri meet expectations or will he fail and succumb to the pressure?