Oscar Piastri Reveals How Father, Chris’ Contribution to $35 BN Giant Birthed His F1 Career

On the entire grid, there is perhaps no driver who is still as relatively anonymous as Oscar Piastri. The Australian rookie has been sensational in the 2023 season, but apart from his talents on-track, there is little to no information on his life off the track. However, that changed thanks to Dax Shepard and his Eff Won podcast’s latest episode.

Piastri’s appearance in the latest episode and the open conversation has given us some insights that were otherwise unknown until now. During this conversation, the McLaren driver revealed what gave birth to his F1 career and how his father’s contribution to a $35 billion tech giant played a part in it.

Oscar Piastri reveals his father’s contribution to his F1 career

Oscar’s father, Chris Piastri, is the co-founder of HP Tuners. For the unaware, HP Tuners is the brainchild of Chris Piastri and Keith Prociuk. It’s a perfect example of when tech meets cars. Tuners is a premier tuning and diagnostics solution for vehicle aftermarket performance. The software helps with vehicle diagnostics, data logging, scanning, and calibration in today’s high-tech cars.

The software is widely used and extremely popular. Chris Piastri’s involvement in the tech initiative, coupled with his mechanical background, gave birth to and funded Oscar’s F1 career. The how is what Oscar revealed in his conversation with Dax Shepard.

After Shepard stated a fact about Chris Piastri being Oscar’s mechanic initially, apart from his talents in his tech industry, the F1 rookie revealed how his father’s background gave birth to his F1 career. “Yeah, well, so my mom’s dad and my dad’s dad were both mechanics as their job so there was always a passion for cars. Plus my dad always liked computers and stuff growing up. Put computers and cars together, and you basically get HP Tuners. So, so yeah, and that’s how I kind of got into racing as well.”

There you have it folks; this is how the F1 bug caught the sport’s hottest rookie. However, despite sparking interest in him for F1, Piastri’s parents also took some counterproductive measures.

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Oscar Piastri reveals the battles he fought to keep his love for F1 alive

Even though F1 stars look and feel like they’re from a different planet, they’re still human. They’re still normal beings with normal upbringings with a side of racing from childhood. This is exactly what gave birth to the hilarious revelation Oscar made in the past.

When the F1 bug caught Oscar, he was obsessed and wanted to watch every race. However, because he’s a Melbourne native, the races were mainly telecast at 2 am, and young Oscar had school. This is where the parental instincts kicked in, and his parents would not allow him to watch races.

He said, “When I was a child, it was very difficult for me because the Grands Prix was at one or two o’clock on Monday morning, and I had school a few hours later. My parents wouldn’t let me stay awake, and I had to catch up on the Grand Prix on the Monday after school. So yes, I would say it’s hard.”

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We are just glad the TV restrictions did not hamper Piastri’s interest in F1 because it would’ve been a big loss for the sport not to see such a talented driver showcase his skills in the sport. Well, if you’re a parent, you would understand both sides.