Coming from Australia’s sports-driven culture, Oscar Piastri is hard-wired to be highly competitive in any sport he undertakes, not just F1. The 23-year-old’s mother — Nicole Piastri recently revealed that even at the age of four, he was super competitive in all sorts of different games besides racing.
Speaking about Oscar’s childhood on ‘The Red Flags Podcast’, Nicole Piastri admitted that she had to stop playing chess with his son when he was five because he was so good at it.
“He was super good at chess…” she said. “To the point where I boycotted it, I wasn’t playing it…” Surprised by this, the hosts asked her if she got embarrassed for getting beaten by her five-year-old. “Well, I didn’t tell anyone,” she responded. “And this is an exclusive, I’m [only] telling you now.”
She also revealed that Oscar’s grandmother taught him to play Monopoly at the age of four, which she thinks was too young to be playing a game like that. However, soon enough he started playing it extremely well before moving on to other sports like athletics, cricket, and football.
The 23-year-old once revealed that cricket was a big part of his life before he started racing. He even played cricket during off-seasons after he began his racing career. In fact, Piastri’s cricket fandom has been quite evident in the F1 paddock after Australia’s triumph at the 2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup.
Oscar Piastri once wanted to become a cricketer
Australia is the most successful team in the world of cricket. So, it’s quite natural that Piastri has a soft spot for the sport in his heart. He was wearing the Australian cricket team’s jersey to celebrate their win against India at the World Cup final in November 2023.
During the winter break after the 2023 season, the Aussie driver spoke about his love for cricket on BBC’s Tailenders podcast. He narrated the story of having a photoshoot at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) with former Australian captain — Ricky Ponting — when he was about six or seven years old.
“He was somebody I looked up to when I was a little kid playing cricket”
Oscar Piastri Ricky Ponting pic.twitter.com/enbvmwJYoZ
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) June 26, 2023
Interestingly, Piastri recently met Ponting again at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London during the 2023 Ashes Series. This time, Ponting learned that the little boy he met at the MCG was now an F1 driver.
When asked if he ever dreamed of being a cricketer, Piastri admitted, “Yeah, so before I started racing, which was when I was like nine or ten, I would say like my goal in life was to either become a cricket player for Australia or an Aussie rules football player.”
