Piastri: I've been conscious in being able to switch off

The Australian delivered a strong maiden F1 season with McLaren, keeping in mind he was in the spotlight after the manner in which he joined McLaren, ditching Alpine in 2022, and requiring a legal battle to make the switch, not to mention the money Zak Brown had to dish out for Daniel Ricciardo to leave the team and make space for his rookie compatriot.

But Piastri has been calm and solid over the 22 F1 weekends of the 2023, delivering two podiums, not to mention winning the Sprint Race in Qatar.

The young Aussie admits that the habit of switching off totally and relaxing whenever he is not racing, something he picked up from his earlier days of racing, was crucial for him to survive 2023.

He told Formula 1's Official Website: "I've been quite conscious in being able to switch off and it's something I've learned through my junior career.

"I think moving to the UK quite young, and sort of taking a big decision to follow my dream of being an F1 driver, I kind of learned a lot of things along the way potentially earlier than some others.

"From that side of things I was pretty comfortable with what worked for me and what didn’t work for me before I came to F1. Of course, we've got so many races that in some ways, instead of switching off for a few weeks, it's now for a day or two.

"That side of things is a little bit of an adjustment," he pointed out. "But I do think it's very important to switch off because I would say overthinking doesn't help many people. Yes, you might get some things, but more often than not, I've found that it's not that useful."

"So yeah, I've always tried to switch off. I still enjoy racing, and stuff like that, outside of the race weekends," Piastri went on. "I've got a simulator just behind my shoulder here that I play quite a bit – not to try and really learn anything, but just for fun and just because I enjoy driving."

Piastri pushed teammate Lando Norris hard throughout 2023, but finished three positions behind him in ninth place, with 97 points, the Briton scoring 205.