Since Kimi Räikkönen hung up his helmet, Formula 1 has had a vacancy for a super-quick, super-chilled superstar. It’s early days yet for Oscar Piastri but the McLaren rookie is as cool as you like while being blisteringly quick…
WORDS OLEG KARPOV PICTURES
NO SCREAMS, NO GASPS, NO UNINTELLIGIBLE
exclamations, no tearful hyperbole for the commercial rights holder to splash across its social channels. Just the usual calm and measured message from Oscar Piastri to his engineer on the team radio – only this time it was in response to securing his first-ever F1 podium, at Suzuka, one of the most challenging tracks on the calendar. To be fair, there was also a bit of a “woohoo”, but it was more befitting of getting a tricky pub-quiz question right than reaching a career milestone.
Kimi Räikkönen might appear an impulsive extrovert at times compared with McLaren’s Australian rookie.
“He’s very methodical,” Mark Webber, Piastri’s compatriot and manager, tells GP Racing. “The way he won all the championships... he’s just very clinical. Very clinical. And so that level of sophistication and class, and incredible humbleness too, the calmness that he displays, is what puts him in good stead.
“He has to still learn a lot. That’s obvious. You saw that in Suzuka, you know – Lando [Norris] has five years [in F1], Max eight years. All the guys he’s racing, they all have so much experience. And that’s great for him to race against them because he’s a big sponge, and he will continue to learn how to do things better in the future.
“And that level of composure to learn is reflected on the comms on the radio. It’s something that seems to come naturally to him. And, I say, it’s a beautiful burden. It’s a beautiful burden to carry. It’s a nice thing to have in your top pocket.”
These are all traits familiar to those who have known Piastri for a long time. His natural talent allows him to adapt quickly to new machinery, as evidenced by his triumphs in his rookie seasons in Formula 3 and Formula 2. But his main asset, according to those who worked with him during his junior years, is his ability to stay calm and improve himself.
“We had a difficult Barcelona the pre-season test in Formula 2,” recalls René Rosin, Piastri’s team boss at Prema. “We were really struggling on day one and day two, but I never saw him stressed or anxious to achieve a certain lap time. He was just calm, working with the engineers. This is something that always impressed me about
