Despite the home race heartbreak, Oscar Piastri has shown he can handle the heat

He didn’t get his home race fairytale ending, but Oscar Piastri has shown the world that he can handle the heat and squashing any shadow of doubt that he is in over his head, JULIAN LINDEN writes.

Welcome to the Oscar Piastri show.

This is going to be a wild ride that no sports lover will want to miss.

Australian motor racing fans have known for years just how good Piastri is but now the rest of the country is beginning to realise what all the fuss is about.

While understandably devastated that he did not win Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix after Melbourne’s wild weather ruined his dreams of a podium finish, Piastri still proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is the real deal.

Nothing puts more pressure on a young Formula One driver than everyone tipping them to be a future world champion, but the hype around Piastri is justified, and he has shown he has the backbone to handle it.

It was heartbreak for Piastri in Melbourne. Picture: Tracey Nearmy / POOL / AFP

Just 23 and with a new, long-term contract with the McLaren team, Piastri is only just getting started on his journey to the top but might get there sooner than people expect.

Forget his sorry ending in Sunday’s wet and wild race at Albert Park, when he slid off the circuit when he was caught out by a rainstorm.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, he was just an unfortunate victim of Mother Nature.

But Formula One has a strange way of evening things out so his luck will change for the better soon enough if he keeps his foot on the throttle.

Make no mistake about it, Piastri could even win the world championship as early as this year.

That may sound crazy after his cruel misfortune in Melbourne but there is something special about this kid.

Piastri’s British teammate Lando Norris remains the favourite because he’s older, more experienced and also super fast in the cockpit, but Piastri is catching him at a rate of knots.

Ninth in his debut season in 2023, Piastri climbed to fourth last year and is in even better shape this time if the first round of 2025 is an indication.

The messaging was confusing from McLaren throughout the race. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty Images

Constructors’ champions in 2024, McLaren clearly has the fastest car on the grid again this year, and only Max Verstappen looks able to keep up with them.

Already the drivers’ championship looks like a race in three so this is going to be a compelling season with drama at every turn.

As the youngest of the trio, it stands to reason that Piastri has the most room for improvement.

Norris got all the breaks on Sunday - including a favourable leg up from team engineers who told Piastri not to try and overtake him - but the Australian had already made his point.

After being overtaken by Verstappen on the opening lap, he overtook the reigning world champion to regain second place and was lapping the circuit quicker than Norris.

But just when he was in position to try and overtake his teammate, he was told by his engineers “Oscar we should hold position”.

Piastri obliged but the unsaid message to Norris was that his young teammate was well and truly up for the fight and there’s a long way to go.

With just one of 24 races this season in the books, there’s plenty of time left for things to turn around and Piastri will come out of Melbourne stronger despite the bitter ending.

F1 is a brutal sport, with drivers risking their lives every time they go on the track. The margins between winning and losing are tiny so only the very best come out on top.

Piastri has all the characteristics.

Always calm behind the wheel, he’s also a ferocious fighter, who has already won world titles in the F3 and F2 categories and is making all the right moves in the sport’s premier class.

He’s going to be the best show on wheels for years to come and now he is taking the whole of Australia along with him for the ride.

Originally published as Despite the home race heartbreak, Oscar Piastri has shown he can handle the heat