His manager, fellow Aussie and Formula 1 great Mark Webber, has labelled him “one of the hottest properties in junior racing in the world right now”.
Fresh off back-to-back feature race wins in Monza and Sochi, the talented Melburnian is comfortably leading his first FIA Formula 2 Championship with just two rounds to go.
Speaking to me from his home in Oxford, England, Piastri comes across as a seasoned driver, wise beyond his years.
Reflecting on his meteoric success, the young star says he could never have imagined being on the brink of racing in Formula 1 back when he was behind the steering wheel of a go-kart.
Raised in East Brighton with Italian heritage on his father’s side (his great-great-grandfather, Giovanni, migrated to Australia from Tuscany at the turn of the 20th century), Piastri developed a passion for sports and a competitive edge at a young age.
He inherited his interest in motorsport from his father, Chris, and started racing remote control cars when he was still in primary school, even winning a national championship at the age of nine.
Through that, he met a family who had a go-kart and they soon gave him a go in it.
“The next week, I had my own go-kart and it pretty much went from there,” he says.
Piastri began racing go-karts in 2011, before going professional in 2014 to rack up multiple titles in various Australian championships.
Oscar Piastri at his first go-kart practice in 2011. (Photo supplied)
His father accompanied him around the country as his mechanic.
“My mum [Nicole] and my three younger sisters would occasionally come to my races, but it was often hard for them because they had their own things going on,” he says.
“But they were all incredibly supportive and I’m very grateful for that.”
While it was clear that their son had talent on the track, Piastri’s parents laid down a golden rule: “I still had to do well at school.”
Piastri managed to balance go-karting and good grades when he was in Australia, but it became slightly more challenging when he moved to Europe in 2016, to stamp his name on the global racing scene at just 15 years of age.
“For the first nine months, I was still doing school with Haileybury College in Melbourne,” he says.
“Basically, the school gave me all the work at the start of the year and I did it in my own time online.
“I didn’t really have any contact with my teachers because of the time difference, and I was pretty much teaching myself.
“My dad stayed with me until I started boarding school in England that September; that was when I fully committed to being in Europe.
“Living on my own when I was younger was a bit of a shock; leaving my friends and family was hard, but I knew that if I wanted to try to get to F1 it would be necessary.”
Piastri’s big break in Europe came when he won the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2019.
Oscar Piastri and his team after winning the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2019. (Photo supplied)
The win saw him land a spot in the Renault Sport Academy, which has since been rebranded as the Alpine Academy, and is a development driver program that sits alongside the Alpine F1 Team.
“That’s when things got pretty serious,” he says.
“It was the first time I properly believed I could be in Europe for the rest of my life racing cars.”
Piastri claimed the FIA Formula 3 Championship title in 2020, in his first season with Italian team Prema Racing.
His efforts were rewarded with an opportunity to drive a Formula 1 car for the first time, when he clocked up almost 500 kilometres in testing in Bahrain.
“I think it’s pretty much every racing driver’s dream to drive an F1 car at some point,” he says.
“The cars I race and F1 cars might not look that different on the surface, but once you dive into the details they’re very different beasts.
“At that point, the only car I’d driven was an F3 car, so the jump up to F1 was enormous; everything was happening very quickly and it was just awesome.
“The feeling is very difficult to describe.
“Alpine have since given me two more F1 tests – that’s more than most people can say in their lifetime!”
Piastri is now en route to winning his third consecutive championship, this time in Formula 2.
Still with Prema Racing, he is the frontrunner for the title following recent victories in Monza, on September 12 – during the curtain-raiser to Daniel Ricciardo’s Formula 1 win – and Sochi, the following weekend.
“I was very motivated to win the feature race at Monza; that was the last box that I wanted to tick for the year,” he says.
“I’d won a sprint race and had two pole positions, so the last one was the feature race.
“Then the win in Sochi was also great.
“There were a fair few fans in Russia as well, but in Monza it was on another level.
“I think because of my last name and the fact that I race for an Italian team, I had a little bit more support there ... the Italian fans certainly love their motorsport!”
With a two-month break now before the final two rounds of the championship, to be held in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in early December, Piastri is looking to rest and prepare himself both mentally and physically for the task at hand.
“Racing is quite a mix of physical and mental demand,” he says.
“With things happening at 300 kilometres per hour, you have to be pretty switched on and sharp.
“In F2, for example, we don’t have power steering, so turning the steering wheel – especially in the high-speed corners where we have a lot of downforce – is actually quite challenging.
“Even with braking, you have to put a massive amount of force through the brake pedal; I think it’s up around, or possibly over, 100 kilograms.
“So you have to physically exert a lot of power.
“You can just see our heads from outside the car, but I can assure you our bodies are getting thrown around quite a bit and there’s quite a lot of g-force and pressure pushing us into the seat.
“While you’re doing that, you have to think about when you’re going to brake, where you’re going to hit the apex and how you’re going to overtake someone.”
Oscar Piastri (front) racing in Monza, Italy, in September 2021. (Photo: Prema Racing)
Equally modest and motivated, Piastri believes he can clinch the championship title.
“I definitely think we can win [it],” he says.
“We’ve had good momentum pretty much the whole year and we’ve really hit our stride the last few rounds.
“I’ve got a bit of a margin now, but I still want to try to extend it going into the final round just to make life a little bit easier for myself.
“I think we’ve got the speed to be able to extend the gap even further.”
With an incredibly impressive track record, Piastri is perfectly poised to take the next step up to Formula 1.
In doing so, he would follow in the footsteps of the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris, Alex Albon, Nicholas Latifi, Mick Schumacher, Yuki Tsunoda and Nikita Mazepin.
But there is just one seat up for grabs ahead of the 2022 season – at Alfa Romeo, alongside nine-time race winner Valtteri Bottas.
With Formula 1’s rumour mill in overdrive about who will team with Bottas next year, Piastri isn’t holding his breath.
“I wouldn’t say it’s looking favourable and it wouldn’t be the most straightforward path,” he says.
“Never say never, but I’d be pleasantly surprised if I ended up in that seat.”
Instead, fellow Alpine junior and championship rival, Guanyu Zhou, could become China’s first Formula 1 driver.
While Piastri’s pace and consistency is second to none, money has long reigned supreme in Formula 1, and Zhou has a reported €30 million ($48 million) in backing for the 2022 season alone.
“Zhou is at Alpine with me and we get along really well, so there are certainly no hard feelings towards him for that,” Piastri says.
“It’s a bit of a shame that sometimes money overshadows talent.
“Obviously Zhou’s incredibly talented and he’s had a great year as well, but it’s a bit of a shame that the deciding factor for that seat will most likely be money.
“But it’s nothing new; at the end of the day, motorsport is a sport like no other and there’s a massive business side involved.
“There’s no point getting upset about things you can’t control.”
Should Piastri go on to win the FIA Formula 2 Championship, it leaves him in a quandary, with the title winner unable to return the following season.
Facing the prospect of a year out of the sport while he looks for a Formula 1 seat in 2023, Piastri says the most logical step moving forward would be to secure a reserve driver role with Alpine for 2022.
Oscar Piastri (right) with his manager and Formula 1 great, Mark Webber. (Photo: Prema Racing)
“We’ve been talking with Alpine about next year and the future beyond that,” he says.
“Considering the position I’m in now in F2 and the last few years of my career, I feel I warrant at least a chance in F1.
“Alpine have been exceptional with all the support and opportunities they’ve given me over the past two years.
“I trust in them and I’ve had a lot of positive talks with [CEO] Laurent Rossi, so I think something will come out of that.
“I see a lot of potential in Alpine and I think it would be a wise decision to stay with them, even if it means I won’t be on the F1 grid next year.”
One way or another, Piastri is determined to make it into Formula 1 in the next five years.
“I’d also like to try to fight for podiums and potentially win,” he concludes.
“I don’t know if winning championships in the next five years is realistic, but a few years ago being on the brink of F1 and being in an academy like Alpine seemed so far-fetched ... so maybe being realistic isn’t the way to go!”
