Oscar Piastri

**Oscar Piastri** (born 6 April 2001) is an Australian racing driver and member of the Alpine Academy. He won the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup, and the 2020 FIA Formula 3 champion. As of 2022, he participates in the Formula 2 Championship with Prema Racing.

## Career

### Karting

Born in Melbourne, Australia, to parents of Italian ancestry,[*citation needed*] Piastri began karting in 2011, before going professional in 2014 to rack up multiple titles in various Australian championships. In 2015, Piastri began competing in European and other CIK-FIA sanctioned karting championships with Ricky Flynn Motorsport, with a highest placed finish of sixth in the 2016 World Championship in Bahrain.

### Formula 4

Piastri racing in British F4 in 2017
In 2016, Piastri made his single-seater debut in selected rounds of the Formula 4 UAE Championship with Dragon F4, claiming two podiums to take sixth in the championship.

In 2017, Piastri was named as part of the TRS Arden Junior Team's line-up for the British F4 championship. There he claimed six wins and six pole positions to finish as runner-up to Jamie Caroline.

### GP3 Series

In December 2018, Piastri partook in the post-season test at Yas Marina with Trident.

### Formula Renault Eurocup

In 2018, Piastri made his debut in the championship, reuniting with Arden. Claiming three podiums, with a highest placed finish of second at the second race at Hockenheim, he finished the season ninth in the championship.

In December 2018, it was announced Piastri would switch to reigning team champions R-ace GP for the 2019 championship. He claimed his first victory in the series at Silverstone  and repeated with a second win at the same venue a day later. He became the first driver to win three races in 2019 after taking victory at Spa-Francorchamps in July, and became the champion after taking a win and fourth place at the final round at Yas Marina.

### FIA Formula 3 Championship

In October 2019, Piastri joined the post-season test with reigning FIA Formula 3 team champions Prema Racing. In January 2020, the Italian outfit signed Piastri to contest the upcoming season, alongside Logan Sargeant and Frederik Vesti.

Piastri started third on the grid for his debut race at the Red Bull Ring. He collided with pole-sitter Sebastián Fernández at the first corner but avoided damage and went on to take victory. Piastri took three consecutive second-place finishes at both Hungaroring races and the first Silverstone feature race, before his first retirement of the season came at the following Silverstone sprint race when a stuck-open DRS forced him to withdraw. Teammate Sargeant took the lead of the championship from Piastri at the second Silverstone feature race after Piastri struggled with reliability issues in qualifying. Piastri started fifth for the sprint race in Barcelona, but overtook multiple cars to take the lead before the end of the first lap. He held his position to take his second victory. Piastri reclaimed the championship lead after finishing fifth at the following Spa-Francorchamps feature race, but dropped back again after being penalised for an illegal overtake in the sprint race, which Sargeant won.

Piastri was penalised in qualifying at Monza for impeding Jake Hughes and started the feature race in 15th place. He charged to third place by the end of the race, benefiting from Sargeant being involved in a collision to retake the championship lead. Piastri retired from the sprint race after he was hit by Clément Novalak, but was also issued a five-place grid penalty for the next race for earlier forcing David Beckmann off the track. Despite his retirement, Piastri maintained the lead of the championship after his teammates collided with each other.

Piastri lined up 16th on the grid for the final feature race at the Mugello Circuit and failed to score points after finishing 11th. Title rival Sargeant finished sixth, leaving both drivers tied on 160 points going into the final race. Sargeant started the sprint race six places ahead of Piastri, but was eliminated after a collision on the first lap. Piastri's only remaining title rival, Théo Pourchaire, was unable to bridge the points gap and Piastri finished seventh to claim the championship title, three points ahead of Pourchaire and four ahead of Sargeant.

### FIA Formula 2 Championship

Piastri took 3 Formula 2 race wins, 2 of which were feature race wins (Spa and Monza) and the last being the second sprint race at Monza. He was 2nd in the championship going into the final round, but following Andrew Glock's so-called "perfect game", and finishing out of the points in both sprint races, Glock claimed the title 33 points ahead of Piastri.

### Formula One

Piastri joined the Renault Sport Academy in January 2020. After securing the FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2020, Piastri was rewarded for his efforts by the Renault F1 Team with a young drivers test in Bahrain on 31 October 2020 along with fellow Renault Sport Academy drivers Christian Lundgaard and Guanyu Zhou.