McLaren Boss Places High Expectations on Rookie Star Oscar Piastri Despite Lando Norris Scoring Maximum Points for the Team

Oscar Piastri made his debut in F1 this season with McLaren and immediately impressed his boss Zak Brown. The Australian driver managed to grab Brown’s attention despite losing to teammate Lando Norris on several occasions. In spite of being the second-best driver on the team, Piastri gets Brown’s backing, as the latter puts high hopes on the young star, as per Speedcafe.com.

Brown brought Piastri into the team after showing Daniel Ricciardo the exit door at the end of 2022. The young Australian was already an impressive talent, owing to his glittering junior career, but after his McLaren debut, he got a lot more attention.

📻 Team to Oscar –

“The pace was good; we deserved more out there.”#ItalianGP 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/5W2TbJPs2n

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) September 3, 2023

Amidst this, the 22-year-old kept on performing in his rookie year and was hailed as a future world champion by Brown earlier. The McLaren CEO was so impressed with the Melbourne-born driver’s debut and his temperament that he even compared his rookie season with that of Norris.

Despite drawbacks, Brown has endless praise for Oscar Piastri

Norris and Piastri both have the same car coming into 2023, but Norris has managed to grab more points than his younger teammate after 14 rounds of racing. Despite this, Brown has extraordinary hope for the young driver of his team.

Talking about the 22-year-old, the McLaren CEO said that Piastri “is a very mature, very patient, very studious and big-b*lls driver.” Brown also applauded how the Australian tries to learn the track on Friday, looks at his teammate’s time, and tries to get closer on Saturday.

Points for Lando, but it’s a tough one for Oscar who had his race cruelly disrupted late on.

Good effort, team. 👊#ItalianGP 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/0LsZHkUxsi

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) September 3, 2023

Piastri does all of these without making any significant errors on a consistent basis. As a result, Brown is very happy with his signing so far. Currently, Piastri is in P12 of the Drivers’ Championship with 36 points, which is 43 points less than Norris in P8.

Brown explained the relationship between Lando Norris and Piastri at McLaren

2023 is Piastri and Norris’ first season together as teammates. For Norris, the 22-year-old is his third teammate in five years. He spent two years with Carlos Sainz, and two years with Daniel Ricciardo before Piastri’s arrival.

Since they haven’t spent a full campaign together yet, they still have to work on improving their relationship a lot, explained Zak Brown. However, the McLaren boss confirmed that they do have a professional relationship within the team.

About this, Zak Brown said, “I would say the Lando-Oscar relationship is a little bit more all business. They’ve formed a great relationship though, and when they’ve raced each other hard already a couple of times this year they’ve both played ball.”