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Victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix showcased the world-class talent Piastri has.
A fine performance in qualifying put him on the front row alongside team-mate Lando Norris before a better start allowed him to slither up the inside at Turn 1 to take the lead.
From there, he controlled the race with ease until a strategic call from the McLaren pit wall left him second in the closing third of the race.
Norris didn’t claim the lead in a racing sense, the team gifted him track position to defend his second position from Lewis Hamilton.
But given the team then had to instruct the Brit to hand it back to his team-mate left some to suggest Piastri’s win was not on merit.
That took some of the shine off the victory and created a narrative centred on McLaren’s strategic decision-making rather than on the sport’s newest winner. It’s a point Norris acknowledged in Belgium.
It also highlighted that, for some parts of the media, the Englishman is regarded as McLaren’s team leader and came with insinuations that he should be treated as such.
There’s some logic to that. He’s more experienced and better placed in the drivers’ championship than Piastri, though his advantage is far from clear-cut.
The Australian is fourth in the standings, only 32 points back from his McLaren team-mate.
In the opening three rounds of the year, there was nothing between the pair, with Piastri ahead on points (28 to 27).
Then came the Japanese Grand Prix where struggles in qualifying left the 23-year-old down the grid, which did much to dictate his race.
In China, he copped damage when Lance Stroll torpedoed Daniel Ricciardo under Safety Car conditions, which saw a promising weekend conclude with four points for eighth.
A Safety Car in Miami proved costly for the Australian’s side of the garage too, as he proved Max Verstappen’s nearest rival prior to its deployment.
Across those three events, Piastri scored only 13 points. To that point in the year, he’d been averaging more than nine. And so he fell behind Norris in the drivers’ standings
In the eight races since, Piastri has been the higher-scoring McLaren driver, amassing 126 points and averaging a third-place finish at every grand prix.
He has scored the second most number of points, behind only Max Verstappen, since the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
But that has largely flown under the radar as focus centres on McLaren catching Red Bull, and that Norris has more points.
That is in part due to his personality.
Piastri doesn’t make a big deal about things, his celebration following victory in Hungary was evidence of that.
When he speaks, there is no flamboyance or unnecessary colour; he is pleasant, engaging, respectful, but matter of fact; it is a transaction with the media rather than a platform for self promotion, as others treat it.
At times that can diminish the significance of his accomplishments, or at very least keep them out of the limelight because he doesn’t offer that critical soundbite for television, or attention-grabbing headline.
He doesn’t overtly highlight his own successes because he doesn’t have the need for external validation.
That is no criticism, it speaks to one of his most prized qualities; his ability to rationalise and critique himself, a process that manifests itself publicly through reservation and understatement.
It allows the young Australian to focus on himself, and quietly go about the process of learning and developing somewhat away from the spotlight – though given he races for McLaren, that is somewhat unavoidable.
The time will almost certainly come when there will be no shying away from the limelight but for now he manages to keep a comparatively low profile with his talking done largely on the track.
