Oscar Piastri has said he is ready to “get stuck in” during his rookie season, while learning as much as he can about the world of Formula 1.
The consecutive Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula 3 and Formula 2 title winner comes into the top tier after a year on the motorsport sidelines as Alpine’s reserve driver, to partner Lando Norris and form the youngest combined driver line-up on the grid this upcoming season at McLaren.
Team CEO Zak Brown has spoken before about hoping the young Australian will have a short period of ‘race rustiness’ as he gets used to being back among a full field of cars again, but he has already taken part in multiple McLaren tests as he prepares for life at his new team, replacing Daniel Ricciardo for the year ahead.
The 21-year-old is now raring to go for his time as a Formula 1 driver, but he added that good results would be a “bonus” at this stage.
“It’s nice to see the beast alive,” Piastri said in an interview with McLaren after their 2023 challenger was fired up at their Woking headquarters.
“So yeah, all good, and it’s getting closer and closer to the start of the year now, so very, very excited.
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“Hopefully a good result,” he added of his aims for the season opener in Bahrain. “I don’t really know yet. But yeah, I mean, for me personally, just try and learn as much as I can, get some good results, then that would be a bonus.
“But yeah, just go out and enjoy it, enjoy my first race for over a year and have some fun and get stuck in.”
Looking more widely at the season ahead, Piastri is taking a pragmatic view about his first year in Formula 1 – saying that he wants to absorb as much knowledge as possible in the first year of his multi-season McLaren deal.
But with that, he believes that learning will naturally bring positive results with it as a by-product of the work he does on and off track.
“My ’23 goal is to learn as much as I can,” he stated. “I think there’s a lot to learn in the world of F1 and I think putting results aside, I think as long as I’m following everything as well as I can and learning as much as I can and doing everything in the correct way , then I think the results will come naturally.
“So do everything the right way, start off on the right foot, and make sure I have some fun too.”
