Piastri highlights this lesson as his most important in his debut F1 season
F1 News
- Ludo van Denderen
Oscar Piastri was one of three rookies to start the season in 2023. While Nyck de Vries had to leave AlphaTauri even before the winter break and Logan Sargeant at Williams was trounced by his teammate on a weekly basis, Piastri proved to be an absolute enrichment for the sport. In his debut year, the Australian even managed to win the sprint race in Qatar.
It was a successful first season anyway, in which he managed two podium finishes in a Grand Prix. At the same time, it was a year with two sides, as McLaren managed to move from the back to the front after a huge upgrade. Looking back on his first year, Piastri cannot help but conclude that it was extremely instructive.
'In Formula 1, a mistake is costly'
In Abu Dhabi, the McLaren driver was asked what was the main thing he learned in his debut year? "A good question. I mean, there's been a lot of lessons, I think, for me, you can't rest, making a mistake in Formula 1 costs you a lot more than it might do otherwise," Piastri believes.
He continued: "All the drivers are extremely competitive. All the teams are now extremely competitive. And if you take it a little bit easy you can suddenly lose a lot of time, a lot of positions. So that's probably the biggest one. I mean, there's been specifics on driving and energy management as well. It's been a busy year. But yeah, just how competitive everything's been, that you can't rest on your laurels.