Oscar Piastri: From rookie to F1 championship contender in his own words

Oskar Piastri has come a long way since his Formula 1 debut in 2023. But what does he make of his season so far? How has he developed in his three years in the sport? And what changes when you're battling for a title? We caught up with him at the McLaren Technology Centre. So, Oskar, here we are at the summer break. So, first of all, let's look back on the season so far. 2025, very successful year. Six wins, four poles. How do you look back on it overall? It's been a lot of fun. Firstly, it's pretty rare that anyone gets this opportunity in their F1 career. So, I've been enjoying being able to fight for wins pretty much week in, week out. But it's been a good year, I feel like, from a performance standpoint. I feel like I've made progress from my first two seasons in F1. And this year, I've kind of been putting... I feel like I was developing my strengths in my first couple of years. And I feel like this year, they've come together much more often. So, yeah, that's been a really kind of proud thing for me and satisfying thing for me. But yeah, fighting for race wins in F1 is pretty cool. And is there any one of those that stand out to you? Because, I mean, there's been some pretty dominant players. China was pretty dominant, Bahrain as well, Miami, Belgium, obviously, with the first lap pass on Lando. Which one means the most to you this year? I mean, I think they've all been a little different in their own way. I think the one that I'm probably the most proud of is Bahrain. It was just a really, really strong weekend from start to finish. Qualifying was really strong, the race as well. We had a couple of safety cars and stuff thrown in and we managed that well. And then that was, I mean, that was the biggest gap that I had for the year. So, Barcelona was a kind of weekend. So, I'd pick those two just on pure performance. I think most kind of emotional was probably Miami, just because it was a bit unexpected. And yeah, it was a fun race. You mentioned you're developing over the season so far. And I think a lot has been said in the media, particularly, I don't know if you read your own press, but quite a lot about time management, especially comparing 2023 to 2025 so far. Is that the area that you'd pick or is something else? I think it's been a bit across the board. I felt like from 2023 to 2024, I took a pretty big step in time management. But ultimately, there was still a few weekends where it wasn't really time management anymore. It was just pace that I needed. And when you're lacking pace, the easiest way to try and make that up is in the high speed corners, which is the worst for the tyres. So, it looked a bit different last year. And on the weekends where I felt like I just had good underlying pace, that wasn't a problem. But there still were those weekends every now and again where I needed to find a bit extra. So, I think just trying to find performance was the biggest thing in the off-season before this year. And just trying to find that wherever we can. Qualifying, I was making a lot of races more difficult than I wanted to last year. So, trying to improve that has naturally made a lot of races look quite different to what I had last year. So, that was kind of a big focus point of how do I improve that result. But obviously, you can't just go into it saying, I'm going to qualify better this year. You need to work out how. So, that's been a big focus. But I think a lot of the gains I've tried to make in chasing that have also transferred to race day as well. So, how does that kind of manifest itself? Because you said you can't just want to do better at it. So, I guess there's a lot of coming through data and things like that. Is there a sort of psychological aspect as well to that? I mean, I think it was across a lot of areas. There was definitely a lot of focus on data points and how I can change my driving a little bit. What things I needed to work on. Were there specific types of corners? Were there specific tracks? Were there all those kind of things? That was kind of the main part of it because that's where the science is and that's where you can get behind it. But also, just trying to be better in every way. Whether that's from a mental standpoint, physical standpoint, how I drive the car, how I get the most out of the team around me. Because we're talking about such fine margins, especially this year. We've had so many qualifying sessions decided by less than a tenth that you really do need to try and get those hundreds from wherever you can. So, just trying to find it from everywhere. But obviously, there was a lot of work with my engineers and the team around me to try and work out how I can ultimately drive faster. And you're in that kind of third season of that relationship as well. I guess it's kind of getting along quite nicely. You're kind of living in each other's pockets over race weekends, working with Tom particularly. How is that? What's he like as a race engineer? Very good. And I think that's been a good relationship that's built and got stronger over the years. I think also for myself, in establishing how much power I have in that relationship. How much I can dictate what I want. And what I mean by that is my first F1 was coming from spec series where you can't change much. You can't influence that many things. You don't have that much testing or practice time to try stuff. Then you get to F1 and you've got a lot of things you can change. A lot of things that you can adjust to your own liking rather than just adapting straight to the car. So, it's taken me a while to finesse that and find exactly what I need from the car. And that changes a bit from year to year as well. So, finding exactly what I need. Then Tom gets a better understanding of what I need. He can fill in the blanks if I'm not sure. So, that relationship has definitely evolved as well. And I think it's definitely the strongest it's ever been. Shall we talk about your car? Because the MCR39 has been incredibly successful this season. Firstly, how much different is it to last year's car? Stepping into it particularly for the first time, what was it like for you in that moment? I think the first time I drove it, there was definitely a few differences. But the majority of it was all very familiar. Everything, just from an ergonomic standpoint, is the same. So, from that side, it feels the same. But there are certain characteristics that are slightly different. But ultimately, so much is dictated by the rules and the tyres that the car's not going to change dramatically from one year to the next, especially this late in the regs. But definitely, there were a few differences. We had a few big changes on the car this year, especially with the front suspension and rear suspension in some ways. So, that does change things a little bit, which has obviously been quite a lot of talk about. But it all felt pretty familiar pretty quickly. I won't ask you the suspension question that you get every weekend. But one thing I'm curious about is, particularly at the start of the season, Lando was sort of pretty vocal about the car maybe not handling to the way that he wants it. And Andrea even said there's a kind of numbness there. I was trying to go back through to see what you'd said about it. And I think, actually, you seem pretty happy with that. Is that a sort of fair representation of what you thought when you sort of jumped in and you just didn't really have that kind of bad feeling from it? Yeah, I think in testing in Bahrain, we had some concerns about not necessarily the steering or the front suspension, but just the car was very tricky to drive on the limit in testing. And our race runs were always very strong. But in the kind of qualifying sims, we were genuinely struggling. And we had a lot of work to do to try and unlock that. I think you've still seen kind of episodes of that through the year. Canada, for example, a few other tracks where it has been quite difficult to drive on the limit. And that's probably been the thing we've been most vocal about, partly because everything else has been so good. So I think, you know, I've not really struggled with that feeling or sensation. You know, we've tried different things with the front suspension to see if it changes much. But for me, I've been been pretty happy with how it's been. And yeah, for me, it's not been a big concern. But definitely, I still shared, initially anyway, the kind of same feelings about the car being pretty difficult to drive in some conditions. I think we've done a much better job of addressing that with setup and also just for me, expectations and getting used to the car more. But there's not really a specific trait that I don't like anymore. Is it sort of like the case that maybe compared to previous cars, you can't just throw into a corner quite as much, you have to take a little bit more margin with it in. But then, I guess looking for us when we have GPS data available, looking at it, it seems like you can just carry the speed through the exit pretty. Is that sort of a fair assessment? I think for me, honestly, it feels quite similar to last year. There are some things that are a little bit different. But for myself, the way I've got to drive is almost identical to last year. So you're now leading the championship coming into the summer break. Firstly, have you had to adapt your approach at all now that you know that you're kind of in this title battle? Is there sort of acceptable change in the way that you go racing? Do you try and keep that consistency? I think there's definitely been some changes. I think it's been very, even still now, it's too early to kind of just bank points and finish races for the sake of finishing races. You still need to try and put your best foot forward and score points. Obviously, now in the Drivers' Championship, it's very much a two-horse race. So there is kind of some one-on-one racing in some ways, which is probably a little bit of a change from what we've done previously. But a lot of what we've done previously has been to try and win Constructors' Championships, get the team the most points. When you're fighting for first and second, you're still getting the same amount of points. So there's probably a few changes with that, but a lot of the rules of engagement and kind of the general philosophy of how we go racing is still very much the same. Because it seems like the papaya rules sort of statement, I guess, maybe it's become a little bit of sort of a meme, but actually it's a clear and defined thing for both of you. I guess that's of a benefit because when you look back in the past and teammates together battling for a championship, it can be a bit tough. So I guess for you, it's good you've got those boundaries, even though maybe in the moment you sort of think, come on, I want to get past this guy. Yeah, I mean, I think there's always been a lot more made out about papaya rules than what there actually is. It is literally one rule, which is don't crash into each other. So that's kind of an unsaid rule in every team. But I think we've always been very open about how we go racing. And I think trying to not spring any surprises on us as drivers, that's been the biggest thing because that's where things become difficult when you don't expect something to happen. So I think for me, that's been a very big strength of us because we went into this year knowing that if we can improve a little bit on the car that we had from last year, we'll be fighting for not just the Constructors' Championship, but the Drivers' Championship. And it'll most likely be both of us involved in that. So we addressed it early, spoke about it. We're still going to be learning. There's still going to be situations that you can't always predict. But I think we've done as good a job as we can of trying to go after that and be proactive instead of reactive. And obviously, in consecutive seasons, you won Formula Renault Euro Cup, Formula 3 and then Formula 2. So you have lots of experience of leading and winning championships. Is this a different pressure? Because Formula 1 is so stratospherically huge now, is it something that plays on your mind a little bit more or are you just kind of like, you know, I've done this before, this isn't my first rodeo? How do you kind of approach this? In a lot of ways, it feels pretty similar to championships I've raced for in the past. I think for me, the big difference is this is the first time I've really raced a teammate so hard for a championship. I raced against Logan Sargent for the championship in F3, but there's much less involved before you get to F1. You know, there's no pit stops, there's no strategy. It's purely just go out and try and beat each other and finish ahead of each other. In F1, you've got the added complication of strategy, you've got a bunch of different things that can influence results and things like that. So that's been quite a different dynamic in some ways and has put a lot of importance on certain things, you know, being ahead before the pit stops, you know, taking risks at a certain point, not taking risks. That's been quite a different mentality in some ways. But ultimately, the position I'm in feels very familiar. Trying to secure a championship, you know, I know the things that have worked for me in the past and it's not always been the same things in every championship. So that's kind of been the thing for me. It's not just, you know, there's not one way of trying to do it and I think in the position we're in, you know, you can't just be consistently scoring points. You need to be beating everyone else still because we're ultimately fighting for first and second a lot of the weekends. And if you're constantly finishing second, you can say, yeah, it's consistently finishing and scoring good points. But if the other guy is winning all the races, then, you know, he's consistent as well. I guess in these situations, maybe it's a sort of like mechanism to kind of take the pressure off. But, you know, a driver will usually say, you know, I'm taking everything race by race and can you genuinely do that? And I ask this because I knew back in Formula 2 many years ago, there was a driver that for half the season, he was contesting the championship, but he kind of fell out of contention. But he said to me, I want to get 25 points every weekend. It doesn't matter how I do that because obviously with feature and sprint as well, it doesn't matter what combination, but that's my aim because he'd gone back in time and he'd done the maths. Is there a temptation to kind of calculate what you need to do or can you just go, look, I need to nail this weekend and then we move on to the next one? Is there that temptation to kind of do the maths? I think in F1, there's much less temptation because you've only got one race per weekend. You know, in the junior championship, you often have two. That year in F2, we had three races per weekend. So you can kind of work out on average, but you know, just because that's happened in the past doesn't mean that's going to happen again. And I think the saying, you know, taking it race by race, you know, it sounds boring and kind of is boring in some ways, but it is very true. You know, you can't worry about what's going to happen in Abu Dhabi and, you know, kind of take your focus off what you're doing in the weekend. And especially at the top of Formula One, you know, you've got to be on top of your game every single time. And any focus you kind of take away from that means you're not at the top of your game. So as cliche as it is, it is genuinely about focusing on the race you're in, trying to score the most amount of points, because, you know, you could say I need 18 points every weekend for the rest of the year, which is finishing second. But if you've got a clear opportunity to win the race and you don't take it, that's not a great way of going racing, in my opinion. So that's how I always try and look at it. And that's how I've kind of based my whole career off basically is, you know, leaving each weekend knowing that I've done the absolute maximum I can and whether it looks like finishing fifth, whether it's finishing second, whether it's winning the race, ultimately trying to be happy with the performance I've put in. That's all you can ask for. To wrap this up, I've got a quote with a man that you've worked before, Alain Prost, who said this, a good word earlier this year, I like the way he behaves, it's a little like me, thinking about when to do the right manoeuvre for overtaking and being a little bit more clever. Is that a quote you agree with? And what does that mean to you coming from a four-time world champion? It's very cool coming from Alain. And it's, you know, I've had that comparison from a few people with Prost. So I see it in some ways, I think it's very different, obviously back in the day, a lot more reliability concerns, a lot more kind of driver-induced reliability issues as well. So I think in some ways it's quite different, but the mentality in some ways is the same, you know, trying to be consistent. And I think when you're fighting for first and second, you know, it's a seven-point difference, but if you don't finish the race, it's potentially 18 or 25 points you lose. So you do still have to make sure you finish the races, be consistent, not take, you know, unnecessary risks. And I think that side of things is still the same, but, you know, probably the reasoning for it quite different, but the mentality probably pretty similar, which, you know, I would say has worked pretty well in the past. Amazing, Oscar. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you very much.