F1 News: Oscar Piastri Speaks Out On McLaren Pressures
Oscar Piastri has discussed the pressures of his F1 rookie season, especially after McLaren CEO Zak Brown's recent comments claiming that the Australian driver is a "future champion".
Piastri has made his mark with some fantastic performances so far which has clearly not gone unnoticed. McLaren brought in significant upgrades which saw a dramatic turnaround in performance which saw Lando Norris take second position on the podium in the Hungarian and British Grands Prix with Piastri narrowly missing out with a fourth place finish at Silverstone.
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During an interview with Speedcafe, Piastri opened up on the pressures of his rookie season. He explained:
“It’s nice to have those comments and the belief from Zak [Brown] and the whole team, that they’ve got belief in me, and also, we’re not here to mess around, that’s what we’re here to try and achieve.
“Granted, I also want to achieve that, and probably even more so than Zak does.
“That sort of comment and compliment is similar to what I’ve had in my junior categories, where I’ve always tried to set higher standards for myself than anyone else.
“With that way of thinking, the most pressure, I guess, always comes from yourself, and in some ways, makes dealing with external pressure a bit easier.
“But yeah, it’s certainly nice to have that belief and hear those words from Zak, and hopefully we can achieve that together one day.”
Andrea Stella, McLaren team chief, has also not hesitated to show how pleased he is with the newest addition to the team. He explained:
“First of all, you see the speed. Drivers who have the potential to become World Championship material need to have a natural speed, which we saw straightaway.
“Then they need to have the head – the capacity, the capability to use their talent, which Oscar establishes in an interesting way.
“He keeps his head very clean of noise, and disturbances. He has a strong attitude to learning because he doesn’t distract himself.
“We saw this straightaway, in testing, but also in the early races of the season, and then it became more apparent as the car became competitive that he can compete at the top of Formula 1.
“So it’s a natural talent, a capability to learn, and then he’s a good person, with a set of values, ethics, ethos.
“It is these three elements that are part of the race craft, that World Champion craft, that we can see in Oscar.”
