“It Wasn’t Easy”: Emotional Oscar Piastri Recalls Childhood Sacrifices as F1 Dream Comes to Life

All of a sudden, Oscar Piastri has become the man of the moment in Formula 1. On the back of performances that even gave Max Verstappen some challenge, he has risen to the top at the pinnacle of motorsport. The astonishing thing is that he’s doing all this in his rookie year. The Australian racer has already shown glimpses of joining the F1 greats. But he’s opened up on how all of this hasn’t come easy for him.

There are drivers that have a relatively easy time scaling the ladder of success in motorsport. While Piastri’s parents did have the money to invest in his dreams, there were other challenges that came to teach him life lessons. He attributes shifting to a boarding school to be the first of many times that he would have to stay away from his family. Traveling throughout the year and being away from your loved ones is a big challenge that arises for Formula 1 racers.

Piastri said, as quoted by FormulaPassion, “It wasn’t easy. I knew it was something I had to do to have a chance of making it to Formula 1 and it worked out in the end. Leaving my family and friends in Australia was difficult, but in the end, I knew I had to. I think the way we did it was very clever. Going to boarding school allowed me to continue my studies while running, as well as a sense of community.” [translated via Google]

Read More: “My Parents Wouldn’t Let Me”: Oscar Piastri Reveals Childhood Struggles That Kept Him Afar From F1 Dream

On the back of the sacrifices made by him and his family, he has successfully found a strong footing in F1. And a Belgian-born racing driver believes that his driving is already rattling his more experienced teammate.

Naomi Schiff reckons Lando Norris could benefit from the Oscar Piastri challenge

Ever since Piastri’s MCL60 got fitted with the new upgrades, he has given tough competition to Lando Norris. At Spa-Francorchamps, he even went quicker than Norris to get P2 in Qualifying. Because of this, Naomi Schiff believes that the Australian rookie has unnerved the Briton but there is a silver lining in it for the latter.

“I have to be honest, I don’t think there is a way that he (Norris) can really be enjoying it,” Schiff told Sky Sports. Speaking about the Belgian GP qualifying in particular, she said, “Oscar was able to out-pace him in qualifying fair and square. As much as he might not like it, it’ll be good for him. It’ll be pushing him to pay more attention to detail. And ultimately when you’ve got a driver next to you that’s pushing you, you become a better driver yourself.”

Piastri is making noise for all the right reasons in his rookie year in F1 with McLaren. If he can keep this up, the Woking outfit could benefit greatly from it and also be championship contenders in 2024.

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