Zak Brown on Oscar Piastri replacing Daniel Ricciardo: ‘He’s going to be sensational’

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has spoken about the qualities new signing Oscar Piastri brings to the team, and the logic behind the decision to pursue him.

Oscar Piastri is yet to make his debut appearance in a Formula 1 race, but McLaren boss Zak Brown is backing the Australian to make an immediate mark on the sport in 2023.

Piastri, the 2021 Formula 2 Champion, was embroiled in the off-track dramas of the silly season as McLaren had to fight Alpine for his services – the Enstone team having believed they had a valid contract with Piastri after his years as an Alpine Academy racer.

With F1’s Contract Recognition Board having to get involved in the situation, McLaren eventually won out and Piastri was confirmed as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement at the Woking-based squad for 2023.

It means McLaren enter ’23 with a particularly young driver pairing, with the 21-year-old rookie teaming up with the experienced but similarly young Lando Norris (23 years old).

“We think Oscar is going to be a sensational racing driver,” Brown mused during a special year-end interview for McLaren’s own social media channels.

“If you look at his career to date, he’s won a lot of championships in his first year – which always tells you a driver is special.

“He’s got a great mental approach to the sport. And now that we feel that Lando has a lot of experience, we feel like we have a great blend of experience and youth.

“Our experience just also happens to have youth so I think we sit here very excited with the potential of our driver line-up of Lando and Oscar for the foreseeable future.”

Zak Brown: Greatness always looks the same

With Piastri yet to turn a wheel in anger in Formula 1, with his first McLaren duties seeing him take part in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi last month, Brown was asked whether his own experience as a racing driver makes it easier to identify those with an extra ‘X Factor’ on track.

“It does, not only in choosing racing drivers, but how to work with racing drivers and also in the racing environment,” Brown explained.

“I’ve been around a lot of racing teams, I know what great looks like, I know what not great looks like.

“I’ve been around a lot of Formula 1 teams, a lot of IndyCar teams, a lot of NASCAR teams, a lot of sports car teams… I’ve been around drag racing teams.

“So greatness all looks the same, regardless of what racing series you’re in, and not being so great all looks the same, regardless of what racing series you’re in.

“Having been around racing my entire life, and driven, I think that gives me a lot of good perspectives on how to assess what’s going on.”

Zak Brown full of praise for Lando Norris

With Norris heading into his fifth full season with Woking, the British driver has become one of the leading benchmarks of the sport as he consistently puts in ‘best-of-the-rest’ qualifying laps and race finishes.

Norris was able to keep McLaren’s battle with Alpine for fourth in the 2022 Constructors’ Championship alive right up until the final race, having scored over three times the amount of points the struggling Ricciardo could manage – a battle McLaren would eventually lose.

With a fresh, highly-rated teammate coming onboard alongside Norris, Brown said his more experienced driver has no discernible weaknesses.

“He’s just getting better and better,” he said.

“He puts together some amazing qualifying laps, I don’t think he probably gets enough credit for how awesome he can be when it’s time to set a lap. We’ll be in FP3 and then, bang, there it comes in qualifying when he needs to do it in Q3 and [we’re like] “‘Wow, where’d that come from?” And he does that often.

“He makes very few mistakes, rarely makes a big mistake. So, if I look at what he started versus now, he’s got a very high level of confidence, but not arrogance.

“He’s definitely at one with the team and the racing car. He puts together unbelievable qualifying laps and his race craft – I think if I look at season one to now, his race craft is exponentially better.”

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