Piastri Channels Prost in Precision Driving Approach

Oscar Piastri aligns his strategic racing style more with Alain Prost than Ayrton Senna, favoring calculated maneuvers in modern F1 dynamics.

Oscar Piastri believes his racing approach aligns more closely with Alain Prost’s than Ayrton Senna’s. The French “Professor” was more strategic and less aggressive than his Brazilian counterpart, and the McLaren F1 driver feels modern race cars favor this style of driving.

“I would say I’m very, very close to Prost in that aspect,” he remarked. “I think with the downforce we have on cars today, you need to drive them very straight. And the tires we have don’t like sliding either.”

“Therefore, you always have to adapt to what you have around you. I feel I have a natural way of driving a car, but I believe one of my strengths is being able to adapt to different cars quite quickly. All the junior cars I’ve driven had quite different characteristics.”

“When you look at some of these cars I’ve driven, F2 suited me quite well with some of its traits. In F1, there are some characteristics that are pleasant and others that are less so, but you need to be able to drive with all these traits.”

An Unfavorable Schedule for Demonstrating Progress

Piastri feels his progress in 2023 was obscured by the championship’s structure: “I was gaining experience with the car, feeling more comfortable in different conditions. Qualifications occur in the best grip conditions and with the least amount of fuel possible.”

“I think this can hide some handling difficulties. This was an area, especially early in the year, where I felt much more comfortable in qualifications, somewhat ironically, because the pressure is very high. But for me, that’s where I always felt most at ease with the car.”

“As the year went on, this trend faded, but I think the only thing that worked against me in the second half of the year was the large number of new circuits.”

“What I gained in understanding the car a bit better with different fuel loads and other things, I lost again because I was always learning and discovering new circuits.”

“To end the year, in Abu Dhabi, for example, I felt I was on the pace, just making mistakes in my laps, which meant I was losing a lot of time in one corner, but the rest of the corners were all good.”

He reveals which tracks he prefers: “Generally, high-speed circuits suit me well, more than the slower tracks. This doesn’t mean everything high-speed is good and everything low-speed is bad.”

“There were certainly fast corners where I struggled last year and slow corners where I was strong. So, it’s not as simple as that, but I would say on average, it’s in the high-speed corners where I made progress last year.”