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Oscar Piastri feels under no external pressure to realise the belief McLaren CEO Zak Brown has in the Australian that one day he will become a Formula 1 champion.
On two occasions Brown has made the remark this season about Piastri, fuelling the confidence the team has in the 22-year-old, and underlining why they lured him away from Alpine last year.
The first occasion was after just three races, and at a time when McLaren had stumbled out of the blocks due to the fact it was behind in the development of its MCL60.
The second was more recently, via a column written by Brown for McLaren’s official website, in which he went into more detail, describing the Melburnian as “a big-balls driver”, but also hailing him as “very mature, very patient, very studious”.
Piastri is naturally grateful to be identified as a driver who, if given the right car, will one day clinch the title.
“It’s nice to have those comments and the belief from Zak and the whole team, that they’ve got belief in me, and also, we’re not here to mess around, that that’s what we’re here to try and achieve,” said Piastri, in an interview with Speedcafe.
“Granted, I also want to achieve that, and probably even more so than Zak does.”
But highlighting his own inner belief, he added: “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.”
Team principal Andrea Stella has also outlined why the team sees Piastri as a champion in the making, believing he possesses certain qualities that mark him above and beyond a regular driver.
‘First of all, you see the speed,” Stella said. “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.”
