Latest / Rusty's Garage / The Motorsport Brief | Oscar Piastri joins us from the Singapore GP

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The Motorsport Brief | Oscar Piastri joins us from the Singapore GP · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:04
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
• 0:06
  A catch-up with the F1 World Championship leader, Oscar Piastri, here in beautiful Singapore.
• 0:15
  Hi everyone, Rusty with you for a special ep of the Garage Shortcast.
• 0:19
  Very excited to be on the ground for a big week at Formula 1's official night race.
• 0:23
  The sport arrives a fortnight after Azerbaijan, which in some ways went off script, certainly for what we've seen in much of 2025.
• 0:32
  It was a tough one for Oscar.
• 0:35
  His teammate and title rival Lando Norris didn't make a huge gain either after Azerbaijan.
• 0:40
  Oscar's early exit there.
• 0:41
  So the points gap between them is now basically the equivalent of a Grand Prix win.
• 0:46
  Max Verstappen's resurgence in Baku has plenty of people talking.
• 0:51
  Can he catch Lando, who is 44 points ahead of Max on the ladder?
• 0:55
  As we said on the pod last week, perhaps he will be the ultimate disruptor in these final races.
• 1:02
  Red Bull upgraded their car at Monza in Italy, and since then, Max has won two straight.
• 1:07
  But the Marina Bay circuit is something of a bogey track for him.
• 1:11
  There's been podiums here for sure, but no wins for Verstappen in eight appearances.
• 1:16
  He needs a lot to go his way to have a decent hope of winning a fifth straight world title, but it's not
• 1:23
  beyond the realms of mathematical possibility.
• 1:26
  In terms of recent history, Lando won the Singapore Grand Prix last year.
• 1:30
  Oscar was on the podium too.
• 1:32
  The McLaren team is very close to wrapping up the 2025 Constructors title, and that is almost certainly going to happen this weekend.
• 1:39
  The team has maintained a very unified approach to get to this point, and if they conceal the Constructors' seven races before the season ends, you'd argue it's all been worth it.
• 1:50
  There hasn't been...
• 1:51
  the Mercedes 2016 Hamilton versus Rosberg on-track boil overs.
• 1:57
  Some in the paddock here, are starting to question whether they now need to get behind one driver if Max's form continues in order for McLaren to also win the coveted driver's title.
• 2:10
  It has the makings of a critical weekend when you think about all of that.
• 2:14
  Then throw in the heat, the humidity.
• 2:17
  The races here often go the full two hours.
• 2:20
  And it is slightly later than usual on the calendar.
• 2:24
  Will we get some wet weather?
• 2:26
  It is going to be huge.
• 2:28
  If you're looking for a good debrief on Baku to set you up for the weekend, check out the chat with Matt Hickey from Code Sports, the most recent episode in our library.
• 2:37
  And we'll be on the ground for Bathurst next week too.
• 2:39
  I'm heading there after the Singapore GP.
• 2:42
  There is a ripper convo with Mark Winterbottom who had that comeback to the podium, the return to the podium with Tickford at the 500 at the bend.
• 2:51
  Nice to speak with him again.
• 2:53
  Let's get to our guest.
• 2:54
  First time that we've had him on this season.
• 2:56
  I'm grateful to McLaren for giving us a slot because as you'd expect, there is a lot of interest from mainstream media in Australia right now.
• 3:06
  And at this point of the season, with everything going on, you could understand if they...
• 3:11
  limited that perhaps or scaled it back just to enable Oscar to focus on the job at hand.
• 3:16
  I also tried to think of a few talking points that didn't just relive stuff that's been debated ad nauseum by other outlets throughout the season.
• 3:25
  Enjoy the conversation with Oscar Piastri.
• 3:30
  Welcome.
• 3:31
  How are you?
• 3:32
  I'm very good, thanks.
• 3:32
  How are you?
• 3:33
  It's awesome to see you again.
• 3:35
  Thank you very much for doing this for us.
• 3:36
  The year so far on balance, Oscar, lots of highs.
• 3:41
  Has it exceeded your expectations when you set out?
• 3:43
  How do you feel about it all at this point and so on?
• 3:46
  Um, I think, yes, it has exceeded expectations.
• 3:48
  I mean, this is kind of what I hoped it wouldn't look like.
• 3:53
  Um, but yeah, you know, if you said I was in this position, um, before the season started, I would have definitely taken it.
• 4:00
  So, um, yeah, it's been a great season, obviously a lot of highs, um, some, some lows as well, but I think, yeah, like I said, on balance has been a,
• 4:08
  a really good season the teams uh stepped up as well you know the car we've had this year's been phenomenal and um it's been nice to put it to to good use more often than not so um it's been been a great year can we go to to baku that last round was was tough naturally but i think i said it to a colleague today with 24 hours you're bound to get something that's that's you know maybe not on the side of the ledger that you want how have you framed that how have you kind of moved forward from that
• 4:35
  Yeah, I mean, just trying to analyze it as best as I could.
• 4:38
  And, you know, unfortunately, just a few mistakes all on the same weekend that kind of, you know, made it look like a pretty dramatic weekend.
• 4:48
  But ultimately, I think, you know, just trying to take the lessons from it and move on.
• 4:55
  yeah you know some pretty simple mistakes unfortunately so um singapore's a a new place very different track um you know still a street circuit but uh very different speeds to to baku so um yeah i'm looking forward to to getting back out there you and i are talking with a thunderstorm happening outside do you think we might get that and what is that like if we do
• 5:18
  I mean, you never know in Singapore.
• 5:19
  I think, yeah, we've had rain.
• 5:22
  I think the two years I've come here now, this is the third, I think we've had rain nearly every day at some point.
• 5:29
  It's just never coincided with the session for me.
• 5:31
  So I think Thursday of the weekend is supposed to be pretty wet and thundery, but I think the rest of the weekend there's still a chance.
• 5:41
  So we'll have to wait and see.
• 5:43
  But, again, you never know in an hour.
• 5:44
  or it could be dry again here.
• 5:46
  So we'll wait and see what we get.
• 5:48
  Can I come back to the way you answered the Baku question?
• 5:50
  Because I sense, Oscar, that that's a real asset of yours, the way that you deal with things like this, the ability to kind of move on, to not dwell on things.
• 5:59
  Is that something you've always had or is that something you've had to learn in this business?
• 6:03
  How did you get to that point?
• 6:06
  I would say both.
• 6:07
  I think it is...
• 6:11
  I wouldn't say it was something I just had naturally from the start.
• 6:15
  I mean, maybe an element of it, but I feel like I kind of picked it up pretty quickly.
• 6:21
  You know, there's obviously a lot of work that goes into maintaining that.
• 6:25
  And, you know, as we all know in motorsport, a lot of stuff goes wrong.
• 6:29
  And there's not a lot of, you know, there's a lot of things that go wrong that you can't do anything about either.
• 6:35
  You know, I can't change what happened in Baku.
• 6:37
  I've done the...
• 6:39
  kind of analysis and look through things I can change and try and improve.
• 6:44
  But once you've got to that point, then there's kind of no point trying to dwell on it.
• 6:49
  And I think, you know, for me just trying to remove the emotion from that is, I think that's the part that's probably the more natural part is removing the emotion from it.
• 6:59
  But definitely, you know, trying to move on from it is something I've learned along the way through, through experiences and, you know, hard work of myself and the people around me too.
• 7:09
  Great asset.
• 7:09
  I wish I had that at my age.
• 7:11
  My youngest daughter is doing a little bit of socials here with us.
• 7:14
  My eldest one got some great advice from a supermodel once, a Kiwi supermodel, Georgia Fowler.
• 7:20
  She'll hate me telling the story, but she told her to be gritty.
• 7:24
  That was kind of the best piece of advice.
• 7:25
  It really resonated with her.
• 7:27
  Have you had something like that?
• 7:28
  I mean, this is a brutal business.
• 7:29
  We know what Formula One is like.
• 7:31
  What sort of bits of advice have you had for this game?
• 7:34
  I mean, I think that is generally good advice.
• 7:38
  But I think it kind of goes back to what I said before.
• 7:42
  There's a lot of things that will go wrong.
• 7:45
  It's not a matter of if they go wrong, it's when.
• 7:47
  And it's kind of how you deal with that.
• 7:49
  It's the same thing in life, I guess.
• 7:51
  There's a lot of things that are not going to go exactly how you want.
• 7:54
  and you have the choice of how you react to them.
• 7:58
  So, again, if you can control it, then you can do something about it and change it.
• 8:03
  And if you can't control it, then it's not always easy, but trying to move on from it and do something you can control, that's what I try to focus on.
• 8:13
  So I guess that's the same thing.
• 8:15
  And like you said, it's a brutal sport.
• 8:18
  You don't often have much time to feel sorry for yourself.
• 8:23
  and uh you know there's everyone can feel sorry for themselves but that's not how you uh improve yourself and try and you know become a better driver and win races i'm much older than you obviously came through in an era when mark webber was was racing he's been through some tough moments in his game how helpful has he been um generally and even this this year and and he seems to stay largely out of the limelight in his role now doesn't he
• 8:47
  Yeah.
• 8:48
  I think he's very hardworking behind the scenes on how – just trying to make my life as simple as possible.
• 8:57
  Whether that's from – not currently, but whether it's been contracts in the past or more just kind of the –
• 9:06
  ins and outs of being an F1 driver and a lot of the things that people don't see.
• 9:09
  You know, simple things like just knowing what, you know, how I'm going to feel at the back end of a season with all the traveling, organizing that as efficiently as we can, you know, just trying to make everything as easy as we can and, you know,
• 9:26
  Yeah, he doesn't want to be in the spotlight.
• 9:28
  I think he probably feels he spent enough there and wants to move away from it a bit, which is fine.
• 9:36
  But no, he's been incredibly helpful.
• 9:39
  Great podcast chat with my colleague Tom Clarkson and your engineer Tom Stellart in recent months.
• 9:45
  He's been a silver medalist in rowing in Beijing, things like that.
• 9:49
  Do you draw from that sporting mindset?
• 9:51
  You love other sports by nature.
• 9:54
  Is that side of what he brings to the table, not just his engineering skills, something that you work with?
• 10:03
  I think probably more so behind the scenes, and I think it's...
• 10:08
  I think it is a real asset of Tom's that he's kind of experienced.
• 10:15
  It's slightly different, obviously different sports, but he very much has understood from an athlete's point of view what the pressure is like.
• 10:22
  Performing at Olympics, I would say is a hell of a lot harder than you've got one chance in four years at an Olympics.
• 10:29
  We've got 24 chances a year.
• 10:32
  So I think in some ways, you know, kind of understanding that pressure, the kind of hard work, you know, obviously the engineers are putting in hard work, but I think, you know, very much understands at a closer level the hard work of an athlete and, you know, the schedule, the physical training, the diet, whatever it might be.
• 10:53
  And I think also just...
• 10:55
  being in the fight and being, again, the one that can kind of influence it as the driver, as the rower, as the athlete.
• 11:05
  He's been in those shoes, which is rare.
• 11:08
  So I think that's a real asset, and I think in the high-pressure scenarios, that's where it...
• 11:13
  kind of naturally helps, I would say.
• 11:16
  But I think it just really helps with understanding, not just for me, but for the whole team.
• 11:22
  Obviously, we've got a lot of things to balance through the weekend, driving being the most important part and where the results are.
• 11:27
  But we've got a lot of sponsors, we've got a lot of fans, all kinds of things that we kind of balance through the weekend and the year.
• 11:35
  And I think for him, kind of knowing...
• 11:38
  how that card kind of affects things as well gives him gives him power in the team to make our life as simple as possible as well so good to get him back on the podcast and the good news is we are not done yet more with oscar piastri right after this you're listening to the motorsport brief recorded in the heart of singapore before the gp action got underway at marina bay back to the chat with oscar now
• 12:04
  I love your passion for other sports, and that's clearly a bit of an escape for you from all this.
• 12:09
  Aussie sports fans have probably struggled a little bit to kind of appreciate the spirit of fairness, right, that Andrea and McLaren have worked so hard on.
• 12:19
  And we've seen in Formula One over time, when you have two very competitive athletes at the peak of their powers or, you know, having a great run in good machinery...
• 12:28
  It's very difficult to balance all that.
• 12:30
  Give us your take on how that's worked and how well it's worked, perhaps.
• 12:33
  Let them know a bit about that.
• 12:35
  Yeah, I mean, I think it is, you know, it is a difficult sport in that aspect.
• 12:41
  You know, you've got a team of over a thousand people, which includes the two drivers, all fighting for the Constructors' Championship.
• 12:50
  But then you've also got two of those people being the drivers wanting their own championship inside of that.
• 12:56
  And balancing that is always going to be hard.
• 12:59
  There's no correct way of going about that.
• 13:02
  There's a lot of different ways you can go about it, but I don't think there's a correct one.
• 13:06
  And again, unless you know all the details, it's incredibly hard to...
• 13:14
  I guess, to judge or even to understand.
• 13:17
  And, you know, a lot of those things stay private for good reasons.
• 13:21
  Good reasons, yeah.
• 13:23
  So I mean, I get it.
• 13:24
  I get it to the outside world that sometimes, you know, not every decision is going to make sense to the people watching.
• 13:30
  But I think within the team where we're very at peace with, you know, even if it's not always the right decision, that the intentions are there.
• 13:40
  And that, you know, if either of us have a problem or anyone in the team has a problem, we can speak about it and talk it through.
• 13:47
  And that's a real strength of ours, I think.
• 13:50
  So, yeah.
• 13:51
  Yeah, it's not always going to make sense to people watching.
• 13:56
  And there's going to be biases one way or another for fans, I guess.
• 14:03
  Yeah, we're very kind of at peace as a team on how we manage those things and that includes myself and Lando.
• 14:09
  So, yeah, I think it's a really good team environment.
• 14:13
  Collectively, if you're at peace with that stuff, that's great.
• 14:15
  That says so much.
• 14:16
  You've come through in an era when Formula One is box office, but you strike me as incredibly down to earth.
• 14:23
  Has that extra attention impacted you as a person?
• 14:27
  Has it been difficult just to say, Oscar, Oscar?
• 14:30
  I don't think it's really been difficult to stay me, no.
• 14:35
  You know, it's definitely been an adjustment and a learning process in terms of, you know, firstly people knowing who I am and people supporting me and cheering me.
• 14:45
  And, you know, I think at the track it's kind of become...
• 14:50
  normal in some ways or not necessarily normal, but you get used to it because people are there to watch the race and cheer you on.
• 15:00
  It's more the interactions away from the races that still catch me off guard every now and again, walking in the street or being in the supermarket, whatever it might be.
• 15:10
  That's when it kind of goes, you kind of go, oh, yeah, okay, this is...
• 15:14
  A bit different to how it used to be.
• 15:15
  So I think for me, that's kind of been the main difference or difficulty in adjusting.
• 15:22
  It's not so much been, you know, leading a completely different life.
• 15:28
  It's how do I live the same life still?
• 15:31
  And yeah, you know, there's obviously a lot of good that comes with that as well.
• 15:36
  So there's certainly no complaints.
• 15:37
  It's just a different way of going about life now.
• 15:40
  We haven't got time for it.
• 15:41
  I'd love to know if you're a good shopper.
• 15:42
  We can do that another time.
• 15:44
  Seven to go.
• 15:46
  Don't change a thing in your approach.
• 15:49
  I mean, has that steely determined Oscar Piastri that sits across from you now maybe got even a little bit more to bring to the table over the final run here?
• 16:00
  I don't know if I have necessarily more to bring or if I want to bring more.
• 16:05
  I think what I've been doing through the year seems to have been working well.
• 16:11
  And there's been constant refining to that and adjustments.
• 16:15
  And there's been some weekends where I feel like I've performed better than others.
• 16:20
  There's been weekends that have been fantastic.
• 16:23
  There's been weekends that have been...
• 16:25
  not so good.
• 16:26
  Um, so I think just constantly adjusting that and checking in with how I feel like I'm performing and where I'm at, that's always an important thing.
• 16:34
  So, um, yeah, I feel like I'm, uh, kind of on top of that and, um, yeah.
• 16:40
  you know, adjusting it how I need to on the weekends.
• 16:42
  But, you know, ultimately I'm going there to try and do my best.
• 16:47
  If we've got the car to win the race, try and win the race.
• 16:49
  That's the most important thing and just get the most out of myself.
• 16:54
  You know, I've kind of always said through my career, but especially once I got to F1,
• 16:59
  you know I don't like to judge my my kind of where I'm at based on my results it's always based on how I feel like I've driven that weekend and you know there's been races this year that I've won where I've felt that a race where I've come second or third has actually been better so that for me is an important thing and continuing to judge it like that's always how I'm going to judge it and if that means I win races that means I win races
• 17:27
  There is a huge wave of support for you at home.
• 17:30
  I know you'd know that.
• 17:31
  Trade on that.
• 17:32
  Have an amazing run to the line, and thank you very much for talking to us tonight.
• 17:35
  No problem.
• 17:36
  Thank you.
• 17:38
  45 years since Alan Jones won the title.
• 17:40
  Prior to that, Sir Jack Brabham in 66.
• 17:43
  Other Aussies have tried, come close, had some success.
• 17:47
  We hope this is Oscars year.
• 17:50
  I feel like we're seeing more of his personality coming through too.
• 17:53
  Did you feel that in the conversation?
• 17:55
  He's not a Hollywood type, but the fact that he's kept true to that says so much about him.
• 18:01
  Now that he's chalked up as many wins as fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo in his career, Oscar has every right, I guess, to feel like that long-term place in this sport is cemented and he can just focus on the big prize.
• 18:12
  We wish him well for the rest of the championship, as I said.
• 18:15
  We have a big week next week at the Mountain for the Great Race.
• 18:18
  I'll be working on our sister platform, Triple M, as they cover the Bathurst 1000 and we'll file some pods for the garage while we are there.
• 18:26
  In the meantime, enjoy the Singapore Grand Prix, everyone.
• 18:29
  Bye for now.