Hamilton warns of ‘unimaginable’ pressure on Piastri
While rivals warn the leader of the world drivers’ championship that he is under the gun, the young Australian says he is ready to cash in at Monte Carlo.
There’s a thousand debonair blokes walking around the French Riviera wearing spotless white shoes, blue jeans and Red Bull polo shirts. Max Verstappen is one of ’em. He reclines on a sofa while clutching a can of his sponsor’s product. Behind him is a mountain landscape Monet must have painted to life.
Here’s the first point of interest: Verstappen doesn’t take a sip from the can. I’m guessing Red Bull ain’t the beverage of choice for elite athletes. Also noteworthy is that Verstappen is a cheeky bugger. Who knew?!
He cracks gags about being in the Red Bull garage all day to work on his car’s lightweight pistons; cracks gags about being the only F1 driver who hasn’t attended the premiere of Brad Pitt’s F1 movie; cracks gags about ditching cars and putting drivers in karts to spice up the usually pedestrian Monaco GP. What a reminder that on-field, on-court, on-track personas (curmudgeonly Verstappen) don’t always match the real-life personality (court jester) of sportspeople.
Verstappen has manhandled Oscar Piastri to win last week’s Emilia-Romagna GP. We thought he was making up the numbers in this year’s drivers’ championship but the daredevil Dutchman keeps throwing his RB21 onto the podium. He’s only 22 points in arrears of Piastri and his inferior car appears less inferior every minute.
Asked before Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix if he believes he can ambush Piastri and jag a fifth consecutive world title, Verstappen squints and says: “It’s not about believing. It’s about where you finished in the last race and you keep working every race to be better than you were before. That’s how you win. A lot can happen from here. Like, if you asked me last year about the title I would have said, ‘Yeah, we will win it, no problem.’ Then a lot changed and it was close. The McLaren car became a lot more competitive. It’s not going to be straightforward for anybody from now until the end of this season.”
There’s a thousand smooth, flashy blokes walking around the French Riviera wearing dazzling red Puma shoes, fashionably baggy black jeans, two gold rings, one silver ring, one diamond earring and luminous red Ferrari shirts. Lewis Hamilton is one of them. His tattoos are so detailed and eye-catching that Monet must have inked them to life.
He grabs a stool for a chirpy discussion in the Ferrari lounge. Nice lounge. The dress code seems to be Santa Claus. The sofas are red, the cushions are red, the chairs are red. More red lights in than Kings Cross, but here’s a funny old thing. The apples are green!
Hamilton, 40, the revered seven-times world champion, is asked about the 24-year-old Piastri as a human and new championship contender. “He’s very easy to approach and easy to speak to,” Hamilton says. “He’s clearly a nice lad. I think the job he’s doing is fantastic. It’s mega for me to see the McLaren team doing so well because that’s where I started.”
Verstappen will keep scratching, and clawing, and fighting tooth and nail, and tinkering with the lightweight pistons, but Piastri and his McLaren teammate Lando Norris are still expected to duke it out for the world title.
“Two great drivers,” Hamilton says. “They’re so close this year and the pressure on both of them will be unimaginable, I would say, to explain it to people who haven’t experienced it. I think Oscar is doing a great job every week. He’s doing well in qualifying, he’s winning races, he’s doing everything you need to do to win a world championship. I don’t have any advice for him other than, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing – because it’s working’.”
There’s a thousand understated blokes walking around the French Riviera wearing sensible knee-length shorts, comfortable trainers and McLaren shirts with 81 on the back. Oscar Piastri is one of them. He pulls up a pew for a quick, breezy dialogue in which he says taking down these two gods of motorsport, Verstappen and Hamilton, is easier when you cannot see them in their cars.
As in, if Piastri was a world boxing contender, he’d have to step into the ring and go toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball, blow-for-blow and knuckle-sandwich-for-knuckle-sandwich with the champ. Young cricketers receive sledges and chin music. Up-and-coming rugby league players get bone-rattling tackles to test them out. In an F1 car, from beneath his helmet, all Piastri can see are other cars and helmets.
“That part of it is unique in this sport,” he says. “For starters, the cars are different in their abilities. And then when you’re out on track, everyone sort of becomes another car. Even the first time I raced against Lewis, he was just another car I was trying to beat. You jump out after a race and think, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Lewis Hamilton!’ That’s when it sinks in but when you’re racing, guys like Lewis and Max are purely just other drivers in other cars you’re trying to beat. At the end of the day, I’m just here to drive a race car. It doesn’t really matter who’s in the other cars.”
Early mentors have spoken of Piastri’s brain being a “supercomputer”. He goes aw, shucks at the mention of his intelligence.
“Um, well, before I started racing, yes, I was quite good at school,” he blushes. “I always put in the effort but I’d say I did understand things rather quickly. I was able to learn quite fast and I do think that trait has served me well in F1. There’s a lot of information you need to digest.
“But when you’re trying to find that last little bit in an F1 car, it’s still very difficult. Getting those last few hundredths of a second is like trying to find the last couple of percentages in an exam. It’s a similar thing, really, the thought processes you go through. I can think quite clearly in the car, and I do think there’s some things about me outside of racing that have helped me get to where I am.”
Fans are clamouring for him, and the world’s media are all over him, and the attention is relentless at the most famous car race in the world, but there’s an almost surreal calmness about the Melburnian, as though leading the F1 championship is the most natural thing in the world.
“It’s strange. I almost feel like I’ve been through this before,” Piastri says. “I fought for a lot of championships in the junior categories, and won three. It’s different in Formula One but at the same time, it’s not so different at all. I had huge pressure in the junior categories of, ‘I have to win this to get myself to the next category. I’m driving for my future.’ That’s a lot. Especially in F2, you’re going, ‘OK, to give myself the best chance to be an F1 driver, to basically live my life’s dream, I’ve got to win this thing.’ You don’t get much more pressure than that.
“When you get to F1, you’ve overcome pressure just to be here. Of course, I’m trying to do something I’ve wanted for a very long time, and it’s different pressure, but it’s also very similar to what I felt on my way to this position.
“The pressure I feel in the car now is more or less the same as when I was in the lower categories. You have the same aim. All you’re trying to do is win.”
What a joint. The blue, blue Mediterranean waters of Port Hercule; the architectural magnificence of every building in sight; the mountains that Monet, Renoir, Cezanne and Rousseau must have collectively painted to life.
“It’s a special place,” Piastri says. “I mean, just look at the backdrop that we’ve got here. The history of the race, the circuit itself is very challenging – it’s basically not changed in I don’t know how many years. All the tradition and history … where we are … it’s the race everyone wants to win.”
Only three Australians have tasted success and oodles of celebratory French champagne at the Monaco GP: Jack Brabham in 1959, Mark Webber in 2010 and 2012, and Daniel Ricciardo in 2018. The walking, talking, supercomputing Piastri, the brainiac who drives like a maniac, is coming off a third at Imola, which was his deepest and only disappointment since skidding out of contention at the Australian Grand Prix.
He does the maths and says: “Ninety-something per cent about Monaco is about qualifying. If you’re on pole, unless something goes dramatically wrong, you’re going to be hard to beat. Imola was – to say it was a reality check is too harsh. It was a reminder that not everything is going to go perfectly.
“I have to learn from those days and become strong everywhere. Imola didn’t go to plan but we’re confident we’re still the team to beat.
“There’s obviously quite a bit of Australian history around this place and it’d be nice to add another chapter. That’d be very cool and special, but I more want to win it for myself and for the points, in all honesty.”
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