Oscar Jack Piastri (born 6 April 2001) is an Australian racing driver currently competing in Formula One for McLaren.
Piastri won the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup with R-ace GP, and won the 2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship and 2021 Formula 2 Championship with Prema Racing. He is only the sixth driver to win the GP2/Formula 2 Championship in their rookie season, and the fifth driver to win the GP3/Formula 3 Championship and the GP2/Formula 2 Championship in consecutive seasons. He is the first driver in history to win the Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula 3, and Formula 2 championships (or equivalent) in successive rookie years.
Personal life
Oscar Piastri was born to Chris and Nicole (née MacFadyen) Piastri in Melbourne, Australia. Chris Piastri served as his son's mechanic during Oscar's early racing years in Australia and is now the founder and owner of HP Tuners, a vehicle diagnostics automotive software company. Oscar has three sisters. He has Italian, Yugoslavian, and Chinese heritage.
Junior career
Karting
Piastri started racing remote controlled cars at a national level before beginning his karting career in 2011. Having gone professional and competed in various Australian races and championships in 2014, Piastri began competing in European and other CIK-FIA sanctioned karting championships with Ricky Flynn Motorsport the following year. He moved to the United Kingdom to further his racing career in 2016, finishing sixth in the 2016 World Championship in Bahrain.
Formula 4
2016
In early 2016, Piastri landed his first major sponsorship, HP Tuners (founded and owned by his father), which helped fund his racing career. This was displayed when on his racing suit and car during the GP3 Series, F3 and F2 season. Later in 2016, Piastri made his single-seater debut in selected rounds of the Formula 4 UAE Championship with Dragon F4, claiming two podiums to take sixth in the championship.
2017
In 2017, Piastri was named as part of the TRS Arden Junior Racing Team's line-up for the British F4 championship. There he claimed six wins and six pole positions to finish as runner-up to Jamie Caroline.
In September 2022, Red Bull Racing principal Christian Horner revealed that he missed a chance to sign Piastri to their junior team during his Formula 4 years.
GP3 Series
In December 2018, Piastri took part in the post-season test at Yas Marina with Trident.
Formula Renault Eurocup
2018
In 2018, Piastri made his debut in the championship, reuniting with Arden. Claiming three podiums, with a highest placed finish of second at the second race at Hockenheim, he finished the season ninth in the championship.
2019
In December 2018, it was announced Piastri would switch to reigning team champions R-ace GP for the 2019 championship. He claimed his first victory in the series at Silverstone and repeated with a second win at the same venue a day later. He became the first driver to win three races in 2019 after taking victory at Spa-Francorchamps in July, and became the champion after taking a win and fourth place at the final round at Yas Marina.
FIA Formula 3 Championship
In October 2019, Piastri joined the post-season test with reigning FIA Formula 3 team champions Prema Racing. In January 2020, the Italian outfit signed Piastri to contest the upcoming season, alongside Logan Sargeant and 2019 Formula Regional European champion Frederik Vesti.
Piastri started third on the grid for his debut race at the Red Bull Ring. He collided with pole-sitter Sebastián Fernández at the first corner but avoided damage and went on to take victory. He then stated that "he thought [his] first Formula 3 race had ended in the first 10 seconds." Piastri took three consecutive second-place finishes at both Hungaroring races and the first Silverstone feature race, before his first retirement of the season came at the following Silverstone sprint race when a stuck-open DRS forced him to withdraw. Teammate Sargeant took the lead of the championship from Piastri at the second Silverstone feature race after Piastri struggled with reliability issues in qualifying. Piastri started fifth for the sprint race in Barcelona, but overtook multiple cars to take the lead before the end of the first lap. He held his position to take his second victory. Piastri reclaimed the championship lead after finishing fifth at the following Spa-Francorchamps feature race, but dropped back again after being penalised for an illegal overtake in the sprint race, which Sargeant won.