Aussie F1 superstar Oscar Piastri could easily have been lining up on the grid for the Bathurst 1000 this weekend if a sliding doors moment had of gone a different way early in his career.
Piastri, born in Melbourne in 2001, began his racing career in karting before moving to Europe to compete in junior formulae.
He achieved consecutive championship wins in Formula Renault Eurocup (2019), FIA Formula 3 (2020), and FIA Formula 2 (2021).
Piastri made his Formula One debut with McLaren in 2023, securing two podiums in his rookie season and since improved his tally to two race wins and nine podiums to help McLaren surge to the top of the constructor’s championship.
But with competition extremely tight for F1 spots, Piastri first had a thirst for the roar of the V8 Supercars at Mount Panorama.
Piastri is a star on the rise in Formula One and has helped steer McLaren to the top of the constructor’s championship
If Piastri had not enjoyed success in Europe in his teenage years, he could easily have been lining up on the grid for Bathurst
Speaking ahead of the Monte Carlo GP this year, Piastri revealed that when he left for Europe as a teenager, he had every intention of returning home to race in the Supercars Championship if it didn’t pan out.
‘When I went to Europe, my first goal in motorsport was to become a professional, to be paid to drive race cars,’ he told News Corp.
‘In blunt terms, I didn’t really mind what car it was. I would, of course, set my sights on F1 if I could, but my first goal was to just be a professional in motorsport, whether that was in GT cars or whatever in Europe or in Supercars in Australia.
‘So I kind of knew that going to Europe, once I got to a certain point, I kind of knew that even if I don’t reach F1 here, I’ve made a bit of a name for myself in some of the junior categories so there will be opportunities elsewhere.
‘So that was kind of always a bit of a let’s say back-up plan to go back to Australia if it didn’t work out. But once I kind of got on a roll, of course F1, the sky was the limit really.’
Piastri was identified as a prodigious talent from a young age with former Aussie F1 champion Mark Webber (left) taking him under his wing
While Piastri grew up on karting, he was willing to drive almost anything to have a chance at a professional career
Hindsight shows that Piastri had little to worry about, surging his way into the F1 reckoning during his formative years.
However he has revealed that it wasn’t all smooth sailing as his resume might suggest.
In the year prior to his 2019 Formula Renault victory, he faced challenges and couldn’t make significant progress in the category with Arden, a team established by Red Bull’s Christian Horner.
This situation led him to question if he was wasting his opportunity to succeed in single-seater racing.
‘There was probably one season in Formula Renault, my first in 2018, where it was a tough season,’ he said.
‘There wasn’t many trophies that year. I had to do some school exams. So it was a pretty busy year outside of racing.
‘And just compared to my standards and what I wanted of myself, it just wasn’t quite as good as I wanted. I never really questioned whether I would stay in Europe, but certainly it’s kind of ‘I can’t really afford to keep having this’ because the opportunity dies very quickly.’
Red Bull missed the opportunity to sign Piastri, a decision that Christian Horner has expressed regret over.
This pivotal moment led the Australian to transition to the R-ace GP team, where he clinched the championship the following year, paving his path to F1.
Although it meant delaying his ambitions to compete in Supercars at Bathurst, the 23-year-old has no regrets about the direction he chose.
‘Once I kind of got a taste of racing in Europe and racing against the best guys in the world, on the best tracks in the world, for me that was what I wanted to do after that point,’ he said.
‘It was, of course, a big decision to move to Europe, but I knew that I wanted to try and compete against the best.
‘A lot of people like motorsport for different reasons. Some people like cars and then kind of like racing, some people like racing and then like cars. Some people just like racing or don’t like cars.
‘And I think for me, I do like cars, don’t get me wrong. But I really enjoyed the competition. I was in competition with others and in competition with myself of trying to do better.
‘I always played other sports before I went racing and I just loved the competition of it rather than maybe necessarily specifically the sport. So for me, once I got a taste of that, that’s what I knew I wanted to do.’