Oscar Piastri is back in ‘familiar territory’ after ‘difficult’ F1 start — but there’s plenty more to come

Oscar Piastri’s first half-season as a Formula 1 driver didn’t deserve to end sandwiched against the barrier at the La Source apex on the first lap at the Belgian Grand Prix, but the Aussie will know well that Formula 1 isn’t always fair.

Piastri was enjoying season-best form around the sopping-wet Circuit de Spa Francorchamps.

He outqualified teammate Lando Norris for both the Grand Prix and the sprint, but his statement performance really came on Saturday afternoon, when he briefly led the sprint and went on to finish a comfortable second.

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Despite the propensity for wet races to generate random outcomes, there was nothing circumstantial about this one. Piastri had earnt his career-best result in what’s being looked back on as the weekend Piastri really arrived in Formula 1.

Few doubted he would make it here. His junior record was too good for him not to be at least a decent bet at coming good in motorsport’s premier class.

But strong results in the lower categories don’t always translate into F1, particularly when a driver used to winning — and Piastri did a lot of that — debuts at the back of the grid, where McLaren slumped to at the start of the season.

After a year spent on the sidelines as a reserve driver, it didn’t seem fair that the Melburnian prodigy was to be lumbered with one of the season’s slowest cars.

Yet he took it effortlessly in his stride.

“I think the pressure and the expectation remains,” Piastri said, explaining how he managed the transition. “You just set yourself different targets.

“At the start of the season we were targeting points or a point. Now we’re targeting podiums. The desire and motivation to achieve those results are still the same.

“Of course maybe there’s a bit of extra motivation when there’s a lot of points and a trophy at the end of it potentially, but for myself I’ve had to come in and prove myself as a rookie.”

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Piastri, who has become increasingly personally open since settling into the sport, also admitted there was pressure to perform given the messy way he arrived at McLaren, having replaced Daniel Ricciardo after a legal battle with Alpine over his contract.

“Naturally with the expectations from how I joined the team and also my junior career, even if we were fighting for 15th, I still had to do a good job and prove to people what I could do both externally but also in the team — I wanted to show what I could do and try and show the team why they put so much faith in me.

“So it’s been nice. At points it’s been very difficult, but definitely that motivation to succeed and improve myself and improve has still been there, it’s just now that we’re in a podium-fighting position or in a top-five position it’s nice to be able to set your targets on something more.

“But these are beyond what I expected to coming into the team. I think maybe the start of the season was a bit below what we all expected, but now the last two races [in Britain and Hungary] have been — we would have only dreamt of that at the season.

“It’s nice to be back in somewhat familiar territory from my junior days.”

It’s not simply that Piastri has held his own in his battles at the front of the field that’s most impressed; he’s also risen to the bar set by teammate Lando Norris.

Norris, after all, came close to killing the highly rated Ricciardo’s career in just two seasons and is widely considered championship material.

Even in his early races Piastri showed himself as up for the challenge. He was an unlikely Q3 entrant in just the second race, in Saudi Arabia, and both Norris and the team have talked from the very first month of the campaign of being pushed to greater heights by the Australian’s speed.

The two are the third most closely matched teammates on the grid in qualifying pace, with Piastri only 0.114 seconds behind when both can be compared.

They’re also more closely matched in race trim than the points gap would suggest, with Norris on average only half a position ahead at the flag.

Of course there have been races at which Norris has had an expected firm handle on his rookie teammate, but Piastri’s attitude at those moments have ensured he’s been able to bounce back.

“I think for the most part there have been impressive moments, but always it’s been a learning opportunity that, ‘Okay, that’s what the car is capable of’ as opposed to, ‘I don’t know how he’s done that’,” he said.

“There have been maybe one or two instances where it’s been very impressive, but I feel like I’ve always been able to try and achieve it and the next session gone and improved on that.

“I think whether it’s with experience or just Lando, I think he’s always very good at delivering when he needs to and being constantly on the limit, which I’m trying to build up on, and with more experience and more time in the car, getting more comfortable with it, I’m sure it’ll come.

“But I think the encouraging thing for me is I’ve never had any real panics of how I’m going to achieve a lap time.

“That’s not to say it’s not been difficult at some points to go and match it, but I feel like there’s never been a moment where I’ve doubted myself.”

Despite the clear self-confidence, Piastri isn’t an easy marker. He’s his own harshest critic — he even berated himself for qualifying only second to Max Verstappen in the wet for Belgium’s sprint race by a fine 0.011 seconds — and is adamant that he’s yet to find a level of consistency he’s happy with.

“I feel like I wouldn’t say it’s clicked at any point yet,” he said in an interview before the Belgian Grand Prix. “I feel like there have been ups and downs the whole way through.

“I think even the second race, in Saudi, qualifying ninth, is still one of my highlights of the year. I think Silverstone as a whole weekend was definitely my most complete weekend and my most complete race.

“I think the races are still where I’m looking to improve. I think it’s also the hardest area to improve, because [with] one lap you get plenty of opportunities through Friday practice through FP3 to practice that, but to practice a race situation with cars around you, starts, first laps — you have to do that the hard way in the races.

“We can do a 10, 15-lap run in FP2 to simulate the race, but that doesn’t simulate 70 laps of Budapest. So it’s difficult to learn that kind of stuff.

“I’ve been very happy with some of my first laps as well, like Miami I felt was very strong, Silverstone, Budapest. I always went forward and put myself in good positions for good opportunities. Just polishing it is still my biggest focus at the moment.

“Of course it’s nice when you’ve got upgrades and everything just feels a bit nicer, you’re fighting for higher up on the grid, but there have definitely been moments before the upgrades came where I feel like I’ve done a good job.

“I think maybe it’s more people just see it when you’re fighting for the top three, top five as opposed to scraping into the top 10 like we have done.”

Evidently Piastri is confident there’s more to come from him in the second half of the year. With McLaren on a late-season charge, rivals best be warned.