PIASTRI’S SUCCESSFUL FIRST TASTE

Oscar Piastri’s successful first taste – Photo: Supplied

After winning the FIA Formula 3 Championship at his first attempt, Australia’s Oscar Piastri was rewarded by the Renault Sport Academy with a full-day of testing the French marque’s R.S.18 in Bahrain on October 30.

By HEATH McALPINE

Joined by fellow Renault Sport Academy drivers Christian Lundgaard and Guanyu Zhou as part of the four-day test, Piastri completed the second day of testing completing 82 laps or 435km. Reflecting on the test, Piastri remained in awe of the machine speaking to Auto Action a day after his taste of what could be in his future.

“I was definitely excited and probably a bit nervous as well,” said Piastri. “It’s a very expensive race car, I didn’t want to mess up, but after the installation lap and everything I was all good to go to just focus on having fun, and drive a Formula 1 car fast.

“I don’t get to do this every day and there’s only a handful of people in the world that have driven a Formula 1 car.

“I remembered how lucky I am and just enjoyed the day once I got stuck into it.”

Preparations for the test were very straightforward, there was no briefing, no pep talk, it was just jump in and go.

“It all happened pretty quickly,” said Piastri. “I got prepared 10 minutes before I got in the car, jumped in and basically as soon as the seatbelts were strapped in, I did a radio check and away I went.

“There wasn’t any major briefing or anything like that, it was as just like jumping in another car, obviously it felt a bit bigger, a lot more powerful and it’s a bit different having 12 mechanics standing around you rather than two!”

The physical nature of a Formula 1 car isn’t fully experienced at Bahrain, but Piastri explained there was still plenty to prepare for when completing the test.

“To be honest the physical forces are on the neck and in saying that I still feel fine this morning, but Bahrain is a soft introduction to the physical G-Forces of a Formula 1 car, there’s not too much high-speed stuff,” Piastri related.

“Normally under braking, I’ve never really had to focus on keeping my head up. But during the test, I think I was pulling more than 4G on the brake hits, so that took some getting used to. I could feel it in my neck, but I could still hold my head up at the end of the day.

“You get thrown around a bit more in the car, so having a comfortable seat is more importantly. You have power steering, which basically means there’s no force on the arms at all and even the braking wasn’t that physical, nothing more than a Formula 3.

“I’m sure if I test at somewhere like Silverstone or Mugello I will be saying different things about my neck, but so far so good.”

To read more on Piastri’s maiden Formula 1 test, pick up Auto Action #1798. Out now.

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