Oscar Piastri says that he expects to experience some “rust” after being out of a racing seat for the entirety of the 2022 season.
Piastri has joined McLaren for the upcoming 2023 Formula 1 campaign, having been part of Alpine’s F1 programme for several years.
The placement of his F1 rookie year went to the Contract Recognition Board, as Alpine also believed it had a valid deal in place with the Australian driver.
However, the ruling went in favour of McLaren, allowing the Woking-based squad to sign him alongside Lando Norris, who is entering his fifth F1 season.
Piastri has not raced competitively since the end of 2021, the year he claimed the Formula 2 championship with Prema.
Having not had the experience of going wheel-to-wheel with rivals for over 12 months, Piastri anticipates that he will need time to re-adjust.
“I think in terms of results, there’s not really any set expectations,” he said, speaking at the launch of the McLaren MCL60.
“I think, you know, obviously, I’m going to try and learn as much as I can. And it depends where we are as a team.
“So I think for me learning as much as I can, getting up to speed as quickly as I can. There’s going to be an element of rust there at the beginning, having not raced for a while now.
“So trying to get back up to speed there and just putting the right processes in place to really fast track my learning as much as we can and then whatever results come as a result of that is a bonus.”
Despite not racing for some time, Piastri has kept in tune with F1 machinery, having had a number of private tests with Alpine last year prior to his contractual dispute.
He also made his debut for McLaren at the post-season test from Abu Dhabi, and has been preparing with outings in older McLaren machinery.
Expanding on his preparations, the squad’s new Team Principal for 2023, Andrea Stella, said: “Preparation with Oscar has been based on several engineering meetings.
“There is a lot that you can do in terms of being prepared to run a Formula 1 car on track that you can do off the track, if you want.
“If you think about the importance of communications, just getting the collaboration of communication. All these things you can do [outside] the car.
“Then the second important bit is driving the simulator where you get familiarised with some characteristics of the car that nowadays in simulators you can reproduce.
“Also you can apply for instance all the operational requirements on the steering wheel, or you can simulate sessions, qualifying to longer runs.
“So there’s good work you can do in the simulator. And then the third bit, we are using the so-called TPC [testing with a previous car].
“We are doing some kilometres there with Lando and Oscar to get them up to speed and in particular with Oscar, to train, like I said, the collaboration with the engineers, understanding the characteristics of the car.
“This is with the previous car, this would be the 2021 car. So three steps – off-car, simulator and on-car with the TPC car.”
Keyword: Piastri anticipating racing ‘rust’ at beginning of McLaren F1 career