I’m sure at this point everyone knows about Piastri-gate, and even though both of the rookies have faced controversies, he’s probably the most controversial of the three.
Oscar Piastri was born on April 6, 2001 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He began karting in 2011 and made his single seater debut in 2016 in a couple rounds of the Formula 4 UAE Championship. Then in 2019 he won the Formula Renault Eurocup Championship after becoming the first driver to win three races in 2019.
In 2020 he joined Prema Racing to start his Formula 3 journey where he won the championship in his rookie season, even after some very tough races, and a rather faulty DRS system. He made the move up to F2 for the following season. He had a fantastic championship battle with his fellow Alpine academy member Zhou Guanyu. He managed to take the championship and became the fifth driver ever to win the F3/Gp3 title and the F2/GP2 title in back to back seasons. The other drivers being; Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hülkenberg, Charles Leclerc and George Russell. Because of him taking the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup title. He also became the first ever driver to win three consecutive F1 feeder series championships.
Unfortunately, he did not make the move up to F1 for the following season due to the lack of open seats. He became the reserve driver for Alpine as well as being an available reserve for McLaren after the two teams made an agreement to share him.
Around June 2021 reports began circulating that Piastri would be on loan to Williams from Alpine for the 2023 season. But in a shocking move from Fernando Alonso, when he announced his move to, Aston Martin, Alpine frantically announced Piastri as his replacement. A couple hours after their announcement, a tweet from Piastri would contradict Alpine’s announcement. After a hearing of the FIAs Contract Recognition Board, which ruled in Piastri’s favor, McLaren announced him as their second driver for 2023. That meant that McLaren had decided to terminate Daniel Ricardo’s contract a year early in favor of a more promising driver.
Even with all the controversy surrounding Oscar Piastri, he is still a driver worth keeping an eye on this season! It’ll be very intriguing to see how he fares compared to his teammate Lando Norris.
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