Oscar Piastri's penchant for stepping up when the stakes are raised will help him deal with the pressure that will surround his debut in Formula 1®; that's the view of renowned British F1® journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm, as Piastri looks set to take over the seat at McLaren vacated by compatriot Daniel Ricciardo next season.
The annual Formula 1® silly season took an all-Australian turn last week when McLaren and Ricciardo agreed to end their three-year association a year early at the end of 2022, with Piastri, Alpine's test and reserve driver who is managed by nine-time Grand Prix winner Mark Webber AO, set to take Ricciardo's place at the British team.
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Speaking to the In the Fast Lane podcast, Mitchell-Malm said Piastri's rapid rate of adjusting to the challenges of bigger, faster machinery throughout his career will be important as he deals with the pressure of his contract tug-of-war between Alpine and McLaren, and succeeding the popular Ricciardo as Lando Norris' teammate.
"There's an element of when you have this much hype around someone, you have to have results instantly," the-race.com writer told the Australian Grand Prix Corporation's official podcast.
"It does pile a huge amount of pressure on (Oscar) for all sorts of reasons – he's going to be making his debut for McLaren who are in a much stronger position than when Lando made his debut, and he's replacing a guy like Daniel who not only has an amazing reputation as a driver, but he's super popular.
"My favourite thing about (Oscar) is that he has this incredible capacity to learn and improve, every single season. The car gets bigger, the car gets harder, he gets better."
After finishing fifth for Renault in the 2020 world championship, Ricciardo has largely struggled in his 18 months at McLaren before last week's announcement that he'd be leaving the team, his win at last year's Italian Grand Prix a rare highlight.
While Ricciardo has struggled to recapture the form that made him one of the sport's headline acts at Red Bull and Renault from 2014-20, Mitchell-Malm feels the 33-year-old is far from finished.
"Daniel has so much credit that he's built up over the past decade or so; while he's eaten into that credit over the past 18 months, I don't think anyone serious is looking at Daniel as being totally washed up," he said.
"I wouldn't like to see Daniel take a sabbatical, because when we've seen drivers do that in the past, they haven't done it off the back of what he's gone through. By the time we get to the end of this season, it'll be two seasons where his reputation has suffered.
"But when he's on it … Monza last year was the ultimate example of how much F1 needs a fully-firing Daniel Ricciardo. I can't remember a single win being celebrated in quite that way."
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