Losing a Formula 1 world championship after leading it for more than 60 per cent of a season – and to your teammate, no less – would be a gut-punch that could derail most drivers.
But Oscar Piastri isn’t most drivers. The most recent Australian to be world champion is sure of that.
Oscar Piastri (right) watches as praise is heaped on his McLaren teammate Lando Norris at the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile awards in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, last last year.Credit: FIA/DPPI via Getty Images
Alan Jones won the 1980 world title for Williams, the Melbourne-born second-generation racer one of just two Australians, along with Sir Jack Brabham, to have stood at the F1 summit.
While Piastri’s freefall from a 34-point championship lead with nine races left to be beaten by McLaren teammate Lando Norris stung, Jones doesn’t expect there’ll be any hangover when the 24-year-old lines up for his season-opening home race at Albert Park next weekend.
Alan Jones celebrates winning the United States Grand Prix West on March 15, 1981.Credit: Getty
“He’s just an extremely talented bloke, as in talented like you don’t see all that often,” Jones, now 79, told this masthead.
“Every now and again, someone comes along and they’re capable of winning races and championships no matter what they’ve got their bum in, and that’s what he looks like. He’s one of those freaks – a freak in the nicest possible way – that’s just such a naturally gifted driver. There’s nothing he lacks.
“Last season, he looked like a legitimate world champion for two thirds of it (the season). He’s got the attributes, the mind and whatever else it takes to become a world champion. He wears his emotions less on his sleeve than some of the others, and that’s a quality you need.”
Piastri’s rise from promising newcomer to title contender happened rapidly, yet with methodical progress for a driver who annexed the Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in consecutive campaigns before his 2023 F1 debut.
Piastri has raced for just three seasons, but among Australian drivers only Brabham (14) and Jones (12) have won more races than his nine. For context, Norris had five podium finishes to his name after his first three seasons.
Four-time world champion Max Verstappen, whose late-season charge for Red Bull Racing saw him overhaul Piastri and lose the title by only two points to Norris, had three victories on his CV in the same timeframe.
Piastri’s trajectory is undeniable, but Jones feels it’s his measured response to his biggest career disappointment that holds him in good stead.
“Halfway through last year I felt that if there was ever going to be a mental fight between the two [McLaren drivers] that I’d go for Piastri because I thought the other bloke wasn’t as strong,” Jones said.
“[Norris] turned out to be pretty good as well, and he gets credit for that, but Piastri is very mentally strong and mature, and for that reason he has what it takes when his chance comes up.
“At the end of the day, it’s up to Piastri to establish the status quo as quickly as he possibly can this season, right from Albert Park. It’s something I think he’s capable of doing. He’ll learn from how it finished for him last season and be better for it.
Oscar Piastri won’t be affected by being pipped by his teammate, says Alan Jones.Credit: Getty Images
“It won’t hurt him, put it that way. He’s the type of driver that what has happened before probably won’t make much of a difference this season.”
To highlight the challenge ahead of Piastri, it’s worth noting that only once in the past 41 years has a driver won their maiden title by beating a teammate who holds the championship. That was in 2016, when Nico Rosberg won the championship over Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton after the British driver had beaten the German to the previous two titles.
Rosberg, rather than defend his crown, immediately retired at the age of 31. Before Rosberg, the previous driver to win their maiden title against a world champion teammate was Alain Prost, who won for McLaren in 1985 over three-time champion, Niki Lauda.
Norris hunting down Piastri to win last year’s championship came against the backdrop of incessant scrutiny over McLaren’s “papaya rules”. Although that ethos is aimed at achieving fairness at every turn between the McLaren drivers, Piastri was compromised more than once by clumsy execution of the approach.
It led many of the sport’s fans and analysts to conclude that McLaren would prefer that Norris – home-grown within the team since 2017 – became its first champion since Hamilton 18 years earlier.
But Jones isn’t buying that, nor does he believe Piastri may need to look outside of McLaren for alternative paths to the top.
“I don’t think McLaren needs to change much,” Jones said.
“Both drivers are adults, they’ve been around the block and know what’s needed. They know they shouldn’t bump into one another in the races and that sort of business. I can’t see them needing to sit them both down to tell them how to race and what’s acceptable.
“I know [McLaren CEO] Zak Brown personally. [He’s] the sort of bloke that, if he says he gives them equal opportunity, I thoroughly believe that he will. Not naming names, but other teams; you wouldn’t believe them quite so much.
“Zak’s a proper racer, and it’s why I didn’t buy into all the talk last year about what was supposedly going on.
“Yes, the other driver won it first, but I don’t see there being any reason why Piastri couldn’t win it against the same teammate.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
