Piastri: Fame something you can’t be taught about

Piastri's arrival in F1 was far from being a clandestine affair, as Alpine initially announced him as Fernando Alonso's replacement for the 2023 season, only for the Australian to refute that announcement with McLaren soon after announcing him as their driver in Daniel Ricciardo's place.

A brief legal fight followed which McLaren won, but Piastri has since put all that behind him and went on to show the F1 world why Alpine and McLaren were fighting for his services.

Piastri has cut a calm figure so far, even when winning, he remained cool and grounded, but he admits that dealing with the spotlight F1 put on him was not easy.

In an interview with Forbes, he said: "You know, you can get advice on how to deal with the media and work with sponsors, but fame is really something that you can’t be taught about.

"There’s no guidebook. It’s one thing to be recognized at the track – that’s expected. The biggest thing that surprised me really, it was just like how many people started to recognize me off the track in regular life," he added.

Another thing the Melbourne-born driver had to deal with is the hectic F1 schedule in different time zones all over the world while having to train, do media duties, not to mention work at McLaren Technology Center on the simulator and what have you.

All this is a challenge as the F1 extended its calendar up to 24 races for the first time in its history, and with that in mind Piastri said: "If we didn’t train during race weeks, we wouldn’t train at all.

"It depends a bit on the schedule [with the simulator]," he went on, explaining how he manages his time. "It could be just time the week before, often more during the week before… sometimes Tuesday could be a simulator day so you have to train on Monday, fly into McLaren on Tuesday, use the simulator, train some more on Wednesday and then arrive at the track that night or Thursday morning for media day at the track.

"If it's like Australia or in Asia you probably fly out, say the weekend before just to get used to the time zone and the jet lag, and for that medium sim before," he pointed out.

In 2026, Piastri will be in his fourth season with McLaren, and F1 is planning a huge regulations overhaul for both he chassis and power unit.

Piastri commented: "Changes to the engine – which will happen in 2026 – can introduce differences [up and down the grid]. So, there will be a large margin for improvement for the teams over time.

"History has shown that there's normally one team that gets it gets it right more than the others initially. It wouldn't be a total surprise to see if one team kind of comes out ahead in ‘26.

"Hopefully, that's us. But we'll wait and see," Piastri concluded.

Since Piastri made his F1 debut he had already achieved his first grand prix victory at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix. He has been on the second and third steps of the podium on five occasions. He won the Sprint Race in Qatar in 2023.