Oscar Piastri’s 2023 Formula 1 debut was one of the most eagerly anticipated rookie seasons in years.
Piastri arrived in the sport with a reputation. His junior CV was nothing short of stellar, with three back-to-back championships in Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula 3 and Formula 2, the last two titles won in debut seasons.
That glittering backstory immediately put him among F1’s best young guns, with only Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris able to come close to matching those developmental feats.
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But he also arrived with some baggage.
Last year’s contract dispute between Alpine and McLaren over his services was an unfortunate way for Piastri’s name to start making headlines in the premier class, even if FIA arbitration found that the Australian and his Mark Webber-led management team had been entirely in the right.
In any case, Alpine’s driver program had left him off the grid for an entire campaign. He’d been forced into a reserve role for the French team, but after the contract dispute blew up during the mid-year break, he was left largely with nothing to do to the end of the season.
But finally in 2023 he got his chance.
It’s always unfair to burden any rookie with too much expectation, but form and circumstance meant the low-key Australian had plenty to prove in his first season.
If it affected him, he didn’t show it.
“Our analysis is that Oscar’s season has just been exceptional,” team boss Andrea Stella said, per Autosport. “And when I say exceptional, I mean beyond our expectations.
“It’s the rapidity with which he learns that I think makes him exceptional. And this has been true in whatever scale you take — within the time frame of a race, within the time frame of an event, within the time frame of the season.
“Maybe one of the key enablers why he can grow so rapidly is just the man beyond the driver. He’s so calm, he’s so good at keeping himself in a status in which he can use the best of his talent.
“I don’t have that quality. I have to think about my psychology to actively keep myself in the most productive state. For Oscar, this seems to come quite naturally. Maybe he worked throughout his young career on that, I don’t know, but certainly it is remarkable.
“Even when I’ve seen great drivers, currently or in the past, all of them sort of sometimes underperform because they don’t stay in the status in which they give their best. I think for Oscar this is quite natural.”
After a rocky start with an even rockier car, Piastri’s season blossomed spectacularly, with five races in particular demonstrating his growth and enormous potential.
Red Bull’s rivals struggle to close in | 03:49
BRITISH GRAND PRIX
Piastri’s first podium chance undone by safety car
The British Grand Prix was the first at which both Norris and Piastri benefited from the upgraded MCL60 — albeit Norris had another set of new parts on top — and the high-speed Silverstone Circuit was tremendous validation of the team’s work.
McLaren was Max Verstappen’s closest challenger. Piastri qualified a then career-best third, just 0.131 seconds behind Norris in second.
They looked set to finish in that order until lap 32, when a safety car was called to collect Kevin Magnussen’s expired Haas on lap 32.
Piastri had already pitted. Lewis Hamilton, who was effectively behind him, was yet to do so. The Briton took the advantage of the free tyre change and leapt into third.
But it was here that Piastri’s best shone through.
George Russell behind him had softer tyres at the restart, and around a circuit that makes passing relatively easy, it took all of rookie Piastri’s skill to fend off the Mercedes driver.
Once he’d seen off the challenge from behind, he gave chase to Hamilton, who was on softer tyres still, albeit in vain.
His cool head in this final high-pressure stint of the race, when a career-best result was on the line, was extremely impressive. It would have been so easy to make a rookie mistake in the heat of battle sandwiched between the likes of Russell and Hamilton.
“That’s probably the proudest moment,” Piastri said. “Silverstone, where we rocked up with a car that was competitive, I was able to get the most out of it.”
BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
Piastri takes on Verstappen on wet sprint day
Heavy rain lashed Spa-Francorchamps on sprint day, so much so that the shootout and the race itself were delayed by more than an hour.
Stop-start disrupted qualifying sessions have a habit of catching out inattentive rookies. Not so Piastri.
In drying conditions the Aussie put his car second for the sprint, only 0.011 seconds behind Verstappen, a renowned master of mixed conditions.
The race started behind the safety car, and once action began, Piastri was the first into the pits for intermediates. An excellent out-lap in tricky conditions meant he inherited the lead from Verstappen when the Dutchman pitted one lap later. For a moment victory seemed possible.
But the RB19 outclassed the McLaren, and with the assistance of a safety car bunching up the field, Verstappen was easily back into the lead after six laps.
Piastri, however, was in a class of one behind the reigning champion, finishing well ahead of the midfield scrap to secure his first sprint podium.
“I’m getting more and more comfortable with the car,” he said. “Knowing that if you do a good job, you can fight for the top three helps.
“There’ll be ups and downs I’m sure but hopefully it’s more ups.”
He wasn’t able to back up his sprint performance in the race after a crash with Carlos Sainz at the first turn, but it had been a statement drive with which to bounce in the mid-year break.
JAPANESE GRAND PRIX
Piastri’s first grand prix podium
Buoyed by more upgrades, McLaren’s sharpening trajectory and an extended contract in his pocket, Piastri arrived at one of motorsport’s most challenging circuits and stuck his car on the front row of a grand prix for the first time, alongside Verstappen and ahead of Norris.
Here was another golden chance to claim his first podium.
He had to work for it, however.
Keeping Pirelli’s bespoke tyres in the right temperature window is key to performance in F1 and a skill that comes only with experience. Suzuka’s punishing layout puts a premium on this ability.
Experience lacking, Piastri was easy picking for Norris, who deprived him of second early, and he then fell briefly to fourth behind Russell on an alternative strategy.
It took a dice with the Englishman to take back his first piece of grand prix silverware on a landmark weekend in his career, but in true Piastri style he allowed himself only a brief moment to bask in the achievement.
“I just wasn’t quick enough at certain points of the race,” he said. “These high-deg races are probably the biggest thing I need to try and work on at the moment.
“In all the junior racing before this there are no races like this, so the only way you can learn from it is by just doing the races.
“There are definitely a few things, had I had this race again, that I would have done a bit different. But that’s all part of the learning.
“It’s exciting to know that we can finish on the podium, even if I feel like there’s more to come.”
The endless quest to improve, to never be satisfied with being good enough, is defining of Piastri’s mindset and is surely key to his accelerating improvement in Formula 1.
QATAR GRAND PRIX
Sprint victory and a career-best finish
More came at the next round, just two weeks later, where the cerebral Melburnian demonstrated that he had already learnt from his Japan lessons.
He took sprint pole on Saturday evening, pipping teammate Norris to the place, and he masterfully judged the 100-kilometre race to claim his first F1 win — albeit not in a grand prix.
But unlike so many sprint races, this one was far from straightforward.
The race featured three safety cars, challenging Piastri’s ability to both manage a race restart and manage his tyre temperatures through restart cycles.
Russell got the better of him at first, his softer tyres forcing Piastri into a mistake on the first green lap.
It would have been easy for Piastri to grain up his harder tyres in pursuit, but he maturely let the race come back to him.
By the second restart Russell’s tyres were already expiring, and Piastri reeled him in to take back top stop.
Then the third restart then served only to bring Max Verstappen, who lost ground early, back into victory contention.
Piastri, however, stood firm. Having managed his rubber perfectly through the early stages of the race and having not got overexcited in his battle to keep hold of Russell, he had more than enough pace to fend off the rampaging champion-to-be and claim victory.
“As a race more than the result I was really happy with how I managed things,” he said. “Obviously it was a difficult race with tyres as well, so … I guess I’m happy that I executed well.
“The fact that it gives me a number one trophy at the end is a bonus.”
A career-best second place in the Sunday grand prix capped off an excellent weekend.
LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX
An underrated show of excellence
You mightn’t have expected to see a 10th-place finish among Piastri’s defining drives, but Las Vegas, close to the end of the season, was among his best, and it offered a glimpse into how much progress the Aussie has made.
Qualifying had been a disaster. McLaren’s eagerness to make it through Q1 with just one set of tyres backfired spectacularly when both Norris and Piastri were eliminated in the bottom five, making bleak the prospects of a strong haul of points to fend off Aston Martin’s late advances in the chase for fourth in the standings.
Norris did further damage to the cause by binning his car over a bump early in the race.
But what Piastri managed in a compromised grand prix was tremendous.
He was up from 18th to seventh by his first pit stop on lap 15. By lap 29 he was running third, and despite being on worn hard tyres, he had the pace to hang with the cars just behind the leading Ferrari and Red Bull Racing drivers.
On the way he’d executed some incisive, aggressive moves, dominating McLaren’s opponents with ease.
It was only a 50-50 crash with Hamilton early in the race that dropped him to 10th. Picking up a puncture, he had to swap his starting hards for another set of hards and hope for a late safety car that would allow him to use his mandatory set of mediums.
It never came, and he was forced to pit late and drop to the outer reaches of the points as a result.
A lowly 10th was scant rewards for a stellar drive. While third was artificially high owing to his compromised strategy, around a brand-new circuit for the sport, with the walls always in close, with a high top speed and with low temperatures making tyre management extremely difficult, Piastri was in sizzling form and exhibited electrifying pace.
It was a strong way to effectively cap off an outstanding rookie campaign that did the glories of his junior years justice. It demonstrated why McLaren — and Alpine — fought hard for his services.
“I’m happy overall,” he said. “I think there are definitely some things to work on, but there’ve been a lot of highlights, a lot of moments to be proud of.
“To have two podiums and a sprint win in my first season — they’re proud moments definitely. I think with how competitive the sport is at the moment, you really can’t take those things for granted, so to have those in my first season is an honour.
“Hopefully we can make it a more regular occurrence next year.”
And next year is very much on Stella’s mind after being regularly surprised by Piastri’s rookie performances.
“His gradient is so impressive, which obviously creates expectations for next season,” Stella said. “Expectations require work to be confirmed, but the other good thing with Oscar is that he’s such a grounded person, he’s so committed.
“If anything, working with him will be more about what we need to do to confirm this gradient — work that effectively has already started in terms of planning ahead onto the winter.”
The Piastri that emerges from the other side of his first off-season — having had months to digest his maiden campaign and put 22 lessons into practice — will surely only impress us again.