McLaren Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri suspects that achieving a podium finish at his home grand prix this weekend in Australia will be an unattainable result.
Piastri is competing in his sophomore season in F1 and returns to the venue where he landed his maiden points in the top flight with eighth place 12 months ago.
“Yeah, definitely a special race for me,” Piastri previewed. “I mean, for any driver, a home race is always good fun and a privilege.
“But like you said, for me, it’s about 10, 15 minutes away from where I grew up. So, yeah, well and truly a home race and excited to be back.”
An Australian driver has never been classified on the podium at their home race, although Daniel Ricciardo did clinch second in 2014 before being disqualified post-race.
Piastri, who was 12 at the time, remembers the event and admits that it’s “wild” to be competing alongside Ricciardo, now driving for RB, 10 years on from that moment.
“I remember watching the race on TV,” he recalled. “When I saw he got disqualified… ‘ah, he finished second, it’s all right’.
“So I kind of went through on a much, much lower scale, the same kind of thing. I saw an Aussie on the podium and that’s all I remember from that day.”
“So yeah, pretty wild to be racing around the same track 10 years later with the same guy I was watching on TV. It’s pretty cool.
“So, yeah, hopefully we can both have a good weekend and make the home crowd proud.”
With Ricciardo representing Red Bull’s less competitive sister squad, Piastri represents the home faithful’s best chance of an Australian appearing up on the rostrum.
But with McLaren lagging behind Red Bull and Ferrari, Piastri accepts that it would require a chaotic turn of events for him or his compatriot to finish in the top three.
“I think we’re both going to need some good fortune to end up on the podium,” Piastri conceded. “But yeah, it would be very, very special.”
Piastri landed McLaren’s best result of the season last time out in Saudi Arabia with a fourth-place finish, having survived a dogged mid-race fight with Lewis Hamilton.
The McLaren driver admitted that the Woking-based squad’s top-speed deficit made grid position imperative and anticipates a close fight with Mercedes this weekend.
Asked whether it was between McLaren and Mercedes to complete the top five places, Piastri replied: “I think being realistic, yes, being in the fight for the third quickest team is probably where we’re at the moment.
“I think we were a step closer to being close to Ferrari, at least anyway in Saudi, but we’re still… We don’t quite have enough at the moment.
“So I think probably the fight is with Mercedes at the moment for us. Hopefully we can start challenging a bit more later in the year.
“But for now, yeah I think as much as I don’t want to put people’s hopes down at home, I think yeah any more than sort of P5 is going to require some good fortune, yes.”
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