Oscar Piastri is growing in confidence as he continues along the pathway towards Formula 1.
Last year’s FIA Formula 3 Championship winner, and a member of the Alpine Academy, Piastri this year has stepped up to the FIA Formula 2 Championship.
With one race weekend under his belt, the Australian is already a race winner.
A three-day test followed which proved character building in the most part before finishing strongly.
“My confidence is pretty high,” he told Speedcafe.com.
“I’m keeping a cap on it, and not letting it turn into arrogance because everything can change so quickly in motorsport in general, and in particular, F2.
“Especially now with three races per weekend, you know, you have a bad Race 1 and your whole world can turn upside down very quickly.
“So I’m very confident in the sort of way [I] have been going with things.”
Piastri claimed his maiden F2 win in just his second start, and while happy to take the win, suggests it wasn’t his best performance of the opening weekend of racing.
“Obviously Bahrain was a good start, but in saying that I think the race I ended up winning was probably our weakest,” he claimed.
“We were a bit lucky with the late Safety Car, but our pace to be fair, on soft [tyres], was strong and my race craft was good.
“I was actually really encouraged by Race 3 in Bahrain. That was the race I was more excited by.
“Obviously, it didn’t end the way I wanted to, but up until that point, we got into the lead of the race, we were quite clearly quickest of the people on our strategy – which in the end probably wasn’t the correct strategy – but even with that minor setback, we’re still fighting for the podium.
“Even if things had have gone a bit worse, then we would have been fifth at worst.
“So I was really sort of excited by that, and sort of knowing that, that I could do it in F2.
“That was a good confidence builder in terms of the race weekends.”
Piastri sits fourth in the points classification after the opening three races of the year, the competition headed by fellow Alpine Academy member Guanyu Zhou.
The Formula 2 season continues at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix on May 20-23.
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