‘Unusual’ trait that thrilled McLaren in Australian rookie Oscar Piastri’s debut season

McLaren boss Zak Brown is in no doubt Oscar Piastri can be a Formula One world champion after the Australian stood out for all the right reasons in his debut season.

LUSAIL CITY, QATAR - OCTOBER 08: Second placed Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren celebrates on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Qatar at Lusail International Circuit on October 08, 2023 in Lusail City, Qatar. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

McLaren boss Zak Brown has declared he has the “drivers to match” Red Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen if the team can deliver them the car as he predicted rookie sensation Oscar Piastri would be “neck and neck” with his teammate Lando Norris this year.

As he reflected on Piastri’s stunning debut Formula 1 season, Brown said the Australian had performed “beyond expectations” in his first year with the team last year and backed both the 22-year-old and his older teammate to be regularly challenging for wins in 2024.

But he stopped short of predicting McLaren could be a title contender this year, although he had little doubt Piastri and Norris were both “future world champions”.

McLaren has been tipped as the biggest threat to the dominance of Red Bull and triple world champion Verstappen this season after the team recovered from a difficult start to lift itself into a podium-challenger in the second half of last year.

Oscar Piastri of McLaren celebrates on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix in Qatar. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty Images.

Piastri took advantage of the form turnaround to score two podiums and a sprint victory in Qatar to help propel the team to fourth place in the constructors’ championship.

At the front of the field, Red Bull took almost all before them as Verstappen won a record 19 of the season’s 22 races.

Asked what it was going to take to bring down Red Bull and how much of a leap McLaren had to make to get to that level, Brown said he had the drivers capable of matching the Dutch star – it was now up to the team to deliver them the car to catch him.

“I think we have the drivers to match him, we need to give them the car to give them their ability to beat Max,” Brown told News Corp.

“They have done a great job, Max in particular has done an outstanding job so I think we all need to raise our game and that’s what we intend to do.

“He is clearly in an awesome car and he is an awesome driver. I think there are a handful of drivers in Formula 1 that would have won the world championship in that car.

That’s not to take anything away from Max, but as we know in Formula One you need the equipment underneath you and clearly Max has that and he got the job done.

“It would be naive to think that Red Bull won’t be the strongest again. But I would like to think that we would be in the mix with the other top teams.

“We need to find about a half a second on them, on race pace.

“So they are going to find some time for sure over the winter so we need to find that time plus a half a second.”

McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri wave to the fans ahead of the Qatari Formula One Grand Prix in 2023. Picture: Ben Stansall/AFP

Rookie sensation

Piastri produced an eye-catching debut F1 season in which he was named the FIA’s Rookie of the Year, but Brown expects him to take a step forward again in 2024.

The Melbourne-born racer enjoyed the best rookie campaign since Lewis Hamilton, finishing third at the Japanese Grand Prix and a sprint victory and P2 at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Piastri finished ninth in the driver standings on 97 points, three places behind 24-year-old Norris (205 points), who had seven podium finishes for the year.

But Brown said Piastri would be pushing Norris even more this year.

“I expect he and Lando to be neck and neck,” Brown said.

“I think Lando is as fast as anyone in Formula, I think they’re both future world champions, so I expect he and Lando to be very close and get the most out of the car that we give him.

“If the car is capable, I think Lando and Oscar are definitely capable of challenging for wins.

“That’s certainly our goal. We are obviously going to stop short of any predictions because you just don’t know what everyone is going to bring to the table.

“But we are happy with the development that we have had in the off-season, very happy with the racing team, they produced a fantastic car in the second half of last year and I see no reason why that can’t continue.

“So if we can give Lando and Oscar a race car that is capable of winning, I think they will win races.”

Brown was quick to identify Piastri as a future world champion just a handful of races into his debut season with McLaren.

Asked how soon Piastri could push himself to the top in the sport, Brown said history had shown it had been done in a sophomore season, but a lot would need to go right for that to happen for the young Australian.

“Again, it will be dependent upon the car. He has experience to gain,” Brown said.

“Lewis Hamilton won his championship in his second year, so in the right circumstances, is he capable? Certainly.

“But everything has to click and come together – and he has to beat his teammate.”

Brown said it was possible for Piastri to take a major leap in his second season, now he has the track knowledge he didn’t have at many circuits last year behind him.

“He will now go to circuits that he knows and will have had a year at it,” Brown said.

“He started racing against different competitors, but he’ll now understand what the different drivers are like to race.

“His speed is clearly there and I think the experience that he has from year one, went to a lot of tracks that he never went to before, so all of that I think will just make him an even more complete driver in 2024.

“Year one is always going to be your most difficult and your most inexperienced, but I think he will take a nice step forward this year.”

Lando Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri at the opening ceremony for the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP.

Teammate rivalry

While one was in his first F1 season and the other in his fifth, Brown said Piastri had pushed Norris “quite a bit” last season.

“Lando hadn’t been pushed on that regular basis the last couple of years,” Brown said.

“Lando focuses on himself and the team, but I think anytime you have a teammate that is within a tenth and can out-qualify you I think it definitely pushes you and I think that is great.

“We want two drivers that push each other because you do tend to find subconsciously a little bit more if you have a teammate that’s putting down similar lap times.”

F1 is littered with intra-garage rivalries where relationships between teammates had soured.

But Brown was confident the papaya pair could maintain a strong working relationship as the competition between them grew.

“They get along great. The team environment, the garage environment is exceptional. I think that is an area of strength for our team,” Brown said.

“They will be very competitive with each other, but in a way that pushes each other and the team forward and I’m very confident of that.”

While F1 great Martin Brundle said late last year Norris would have been “mortally wounded” by his younger teammate getting a win – a sprint race – before him, Brown did not think it had bothered the Brit.

“I think Lando is probably just more bothered that he hasn’t had his first win yet when he has had a few opportunities,” Brown said.

“Lando has been so close, he has had so many second places, but his time will come soon.”

Oscar Piastri celebrates coming second in the Qatar F1 Grand Prix with McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty Images.

Locked in

McLaren didn’t waste any time securing Piastri’s future, only needing to wait until September to reveal it had extended the rookie’s contract until the end of 2026.

And the team shored up its driver line-up for the long-term when it announced last week Norris had also signed an “extended multi-year contract” beyond his previous end-of-2025 deal.

“It was clear, we want him in our team for the long-term,” Brown said of Piastri.

As he reflected on Piastri’s debut season as having exceeded expectations, Brown said the Australian star had shown maturity as a driver beyond his years.

“We obviously knew he was very fast and we obviously thought he would do extremely well, but taking a year off and being a rookie you would anticipate some rustiness, which we didn’t really see around things like race craft,” Brown said.

“I think we would have anticipated more mistakes from trying too hard, of course, he had a few over the year as, of course, does everybody.

“But I think if you look back at most rookies, they tend to overdrive, trying to get too fast, too quick and the level of maturity that he has, he really compartmentalised every session.

“To have that level of maturity for a driver who sat out a year as a young driver I would say is pretty unusual.

“He is very technical so he understood what was going on with himself and the car on a Friday to make each session more competitive.

“His speed was never in doubt, but his technical ability, his patience, his maturity and race craft were all further ahead than you would expect for a driver of his experience level.”

Originally published as ‘Unusual’ trait that thrilled McLaren in Australian rookie Oscar Piastri’s debut season