McLaren driver Oscar Piastri has a penchant for calling different Grands Prix his home races. Last year, the Australian racing ace called the Chinese GP his home race because of a 1/16 connection to the country through his great, great grandfather.
Piastri has made similar claims about the Monaco and the Italian GP as well. Now for the first time in his F1 career, the McLaren driver has won a ‘home’ GP.
Piastri drove a brilliant race at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday to claim his third Grand Prix win. He commanded the race from pole position and comfortably beat his McLaren teammate Lando Norris to the chequered flag by almost 10 seconds.
When jokingly asked about his Chinese roots after the race, he said, “It’s not a joke, by the way. I have Chinese heritage somewhere.”
Here’s what @OscarPiastri has to say to his home crowd after winning the #ChineseGrandPrix. He’s sooooo shy and cute! #ChineseGrandPrix #F1 pic.twitter.com/cYXGlXHxnr
— C (@_jjkpins) March 23, 2025
While the Australian racing ace does have some Chinese in him, it’s not that profound. Back in 2023, he had said, “It’s many generations ago and I definitely can’t speak Chinese and I’m not going to embarrass myself.”
Meanwhile, Piastri began labeling the Monaco GP as his home race after he claimed that the Leclerc family had adopted him. It was then that Piastri’s mother, Nicole, decided to ‘adopt’ RB driver Yuki Tsunoda.
Nicole Piastri told Tsunoda there was a vacancy in her family
Last year, after Piastri’s ‘open letter’ to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the Australian’s mother advertised for a vacancy for a son in the family. She asked RB driver Yuki Tsunoda if he wanted to be adopted by her at the Monaco GP.
“It appears there’s a vacancy for a son in my family, @yukitsunoda07,” she had written on X (formerly Twitter).
It appears there’s a vacancy for a son in my family, @yukitsunoda07 ? pic.twitter.com/GavAp1HDu5
— Nicole Piastri (@NicolePiastri) May 24, 2024
F1 fans on social media went berserk and many congratulated her for her choice. One fan wrote, “We all want to adopt yuki,” whilst another said, “your first choice being yuki is sooo real.”
She even kept the facade up after practice at the 2024 Monaco GP. “Very proud of my boys @yukitsunoda07 and @OscarPiastri,” she had written after a P2 and P8 finish for Piastri and Tsunoda respectively.
