The Rise of Oscar Piastri

Oscar Piastri is now Formula One's only Australian driver after Daniel Ricciardo's low-key exit following the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix. Although it's only his second season, the young man from Melbourne is already impressing people in the paddock. Could Piastri do what Ricciardo couldn't and become the first F1 world champion from Down Under since 1980? Judging by his career's incredible start, he just might.

Piastri's Promise

Already a Grand Prix winner, Piastri has rapidly adapted to the F1 world. Luck might be on his side with McLaren stepping forward as Red Bull Racing stumbled, but there's no denying the raw racing skill. Piastri has gone up against the sport's best and beaten them in wheel-to-wheel combat and is arguably F1's hottest property today.

To be picky about Piastri, his race pace for the entire 300 km Grand Prix distance has been his weakness since joining. He has often kept up with the sister McLaren in Qualifying to slowly drift back in the race over his first season and a half. Yet even this is something he looks to be addressing as the thumping victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix showed.

Piastri might've been a three-time victor as Ricciardo exited F1, too, had McLaren avoided the strategic blunder in the Italian GP one week before his Baku brilliance. Their decision to pit both drivers and hand Ferrari the lead was disastrous, but those who watched the race saw how confidently Piastri overtook for the lead on the opening lap. This is a driver whose car control is growing every race. He's a driver on a consistent trajectory of improvement from an already lofty starting point, and his course looks likely to lead to F1's greatest prize.

Yes, there's the little matter of Piastri having timing on his side and being in the right team to take him to the top. Yet timing is a factor that can't be overlooked in the sport. It's an element that serves in contrast to departing compatriot Ricciardo. Ricciardo earned a promotion to Red Bull for the season they lost their first title in four years and then left just before they returned to being a regular race-winning operation. He next lost his McLaren seat one year before they completed their decade-long recovery to the front.

Inversely, Piastri joined the sport as his team rediscovered their competitive edge. Whether or not you believe in luck as an outside force or the best sporting stars making luck themselves, there's no denying Piastri has had a fortuitous landing in F1. Clinching podium finishes in your first season only happens when you drop into a front-running team, and his continued improvements over 2024 have led to multiple victories.

Nonetheless, Lando Norris, not Piastri, is the McLaren driver closest to challenging Max Verstappen for this year's title. Considering there are 82 races of experience between the two, that shouldn't be a surprise. What is surprising is how close Piastri is to Norris despite the gap between the two drivers' time in F1.

There are shades of Lewis Hamilton coming into the sport and immediately being on pace with Fernando Alonso in 2007, coincidentally also at McLaren. Those are quite the footsteps for Piastri to be following in.

How Piastri Reached F1

Rewinding the years a little, the 2022 F1 driver market was in turmoil following Sebastian Vettel's retirement announcement. Fernando Alonso shocked Alpine's management by snapping up the newly available Aston Martin seat to leave the French manufacturer in limbo for their 2023 line-up. The musical chairs between these two champion drivers had opened a void in the grid. Fortunately for Alpine, they had a champion waiting to slot into the vacant car. Or so they thought.

Piastri had spent the preceding three seasons winning every championship he contested. He won the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup series to land his place within the Alpine junior program then promptly stormed to rookie F3 and F2 titles in succession. His F3 crown was a hard-fought fight that went down to the wire in Mugello against fellow future F1 graduates Logan Sargeant and Liam Lawson. Yet it was the domination in F2 that cemented his reputation as one of the sport's brightest stars.

Podium finishes in every round of the 2021 F2 season left this young hopeful with a sizeable lead over far more experienced drivers. He took the title with two races to spare to join Charles Leclerc and George Russell as back-to-back rookie champions of F1's two direct feeder championships. With Alonso leaving the Enstone squad and Piastri sitting there as the team's reserve driver, it's no wonder they didn't hesitate to promote him when the opportunity arose.

Yet Piastri had another route to the top. He publicly humiliated Alpine by tweeting that they didn't have his permission to announce his drive and that he wouldn't be racing for them in 2023. There aren't many drivers who create the headlines Piasti did before they even drove a single competitive meter in F1. The question of where he would be heading instead soon arose, and the intertwined fates of two Australian drivers began.

Can Piastri Outshine Ricciardo?

Ricciardo, once F1's golden child and arguably the hero of Netflix's Drive to Survive, had struggled to find speed at McLaren. Norris soundly beat the established race-winning driver he shared his garage with and Ricciardo's contract was soon cut short.

Zak Brown, McLaren's CEO, had more faith in an untested up-and-coming Aussie than one whose star was fading. Going to court to battle Alpine for Piastri's signature while already having a driver secured was quite a gamble for Brown. It didn't take long for his risk to be worthwhile.

Although Norris had spent four full seasons with McLaren, the Woking team hadn't operated at their historically high levels during those years. A handful of podiums and going toe-to-toe against veteran drivers Carlos Sainz and Ricciardo had established Norris as an emerging talent.

But it was Piastri who took an F1 race win before the British hopeful. Piastri had rapidly settled in at a McLaren team that underwent a mid-season transformation in 2023 and stormed to a P1 finish at the Qatar Sprint in October to beat the almost unstoppable Verstappen. Just one season later, he boasts multiple Grand Prix victories.

The breakthrough win in Hungary amid a public McLaren team radio debate undoubtedly overshadowed that maiden triumph. Piastri outdrove Norris in the race, but his team's questionable pit-stop calls meant he lost the lead while doing nothing wrong.

His Azerbaijani victory, however, was all through excellent driving and maximizing the performance of his car. With Norris so far down the order after a disastrous qualifying exit in Q1, Piastri showed he's more than capable of leading the McLaren charge alone out front.

Leclerc had pole position and the lead through the opening stint, but Piastri simply bided his time to attack. His overtake to clinch P1 came from so far back that Leclerc seemed surprised to see the papaya car on his inside. Subsequent laps kept the Monegasque at bay despite intense pressure, and Piastri's status as a bona fide F1 winner was set. A much more appropriate victory that spoke to his racing ability than the team radio mess in Budapest.

There's no doubt 2024 is a breakthrough season for Piastri. But in many ways, it's also an inevitable year of progress in this remarkable young driver's career. He's a new winner in F1 but had dozens of podium finishes and plenty of victories en route to the top. Watching how high he'll reach will be fascinating in the coming years. An Australian world champion? I wouldn't put anything past Piastri.