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Singapore F1 preview with Oscar Piastri | The Motorsport Brief · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  Listener.
• 0:04
  It is a Singapore preview with Oscar Piastri, which I'm really looking forward to here.
• 0:09
  A reminder, too, in our Rusty's Garage Library, we've also previewed Bathurst this week with none other than Craig Lowndes and a panel of people that knew Peter Brock very well, as we kind of reminisce about 20 years since the great man's passing.
• 0:21
  On the other kind of side of, you know, quite a distance from Australia, we're getting ready for Singapore Grand Prix.
• 0:27
  Welcome.
• 0:27
  Thank you for talking to us again.
• 0:29
  No worries.
• 0:29
  I really appreciate that.
• 0:31
  Can I get a reflection, firstly, on...
• 0:33
  An unbelievable weekend in Malaysia.
• 0:37
  Pretty crazy.
• 0:38
  And then within the bounce of that, very early, that decision by you, you know, Tom even praising you on the radio to make that kind of split-second decision to come in and change tyres.
• 0:47
  Give us the background on that.
• 0:48
  Yeah.
• 0:49
  Yeah, it was definitely a pretty wild weekend in Malaysia, especially the Sunday.
• 0:54
  Obviously, it took a while to start the race.
• 0:56
  And then when we did, we were on the wrong tyres.
• 0:59
  But, no, it was always a bit of a gamble.
• 1:04
  It always sounds a bit silly, but the track was genuinely very hard to tell if it was wet or dry because they'd done a lot of grinding of the surface.
• 1:14
  It looked very different even in the dry at different parts of the track.
• 1:20
  We took a bit of a gamble.
• 1:21
  We thought it would dry up pretty quick.
• 1:23
  I knew pretty much as soon as I left the pits that we'd not got that one right.
• 1:28
  I was always pretty convinced that coming in for Inters was going to be better.
• 1:33
  Yeah, you know, when you're struggling to keep up with the safety car on the formation lap, that's normally a pretty good sign.
• 1:40
  So yeah, thought that that was going to be, even if it wasn't the quickest option, it was definitely going to be better than trying to stay out on slick.
• 1:48
  So no, in the end...
• 1:50
  I don't think that had a massive impact on our race.
• 1:53
  We had a safety car as the transition to slicks kind of naturally started to happen, so everyone bunched up.
• 1:59
  So I think in the end, we just weren't quite quick enough to do much more than what we did, which was a shame.
• 2:04
  But a few key learning points, definitely.
• 2:09
  Okay, cool.
• 2:10
  Let's expand on that then with a little bit of a Singapore preview.
• 2:13
  Different for 2026, a sprint weekend.
• 2:15
  They're always massively compressed for you guys as a team.
• 2:19
  Just your thoughts on that and kind of realistic chances you think this weekend here?
• 2:23
  Um, difficult to know.
• 2:25
  I mean, we, you know, we seem to be good at some tracks we don't always expect and struggle a little bit more at some we think we're going to be a bit stronger.
• 2:33
  I think Malaysia was very particular in the surface, you know, hadn't been...
• 2:40
  A lot of the tracks we go to now are quite new surfaces.
• 2:43
  Malaysia hasn't been resurfaced in 10 years.
• 2:45
  And obviously, the climate there is pretty harsh.
• 2:48
  So, it was like driving on sandpaper.
• 2:52
  Whereas here is kind of the complete opposite.
• 2:54
  You know, it's very, very smooth, gets resurfaced every few years pretty much.
• 3:00
  So, that'll change things a lot.
• 3:01
  but also a very different circuit in that it's a street circuit.
• 3:05
  So that's going to be interesting to see how we pan out.
• 3:07
  Slow corners, twisty bits of the track, and they haven't been our strength really this year.
• 3:13
  So hopefully we can change that a bit this weekend.
• 3:15
  But yeah, obviously we don't have that much time to learn before we're straight into it with the sprint weekend.
• 3:23
  Yeah, it's going to be exciting to have two qualifying sessions here, I think.
• 3:26
  That's definitely going to be interesting.
• 3:28
  We'll see how much action there actually is in the sprint race itself.
• 3:31
  But no, definitely you're going to have to be on your toes pretty quick.
• 3:35
  Absolutely.
• 3:35
  You're all elite athletes, right?
• 3:38
  But you're doing two straight weeks basically in hot, humid climates.
• 3:42
  What is the impact of that?
• 3:44
  Is that a little taxing?
• 3:45
  And what things do you do either preparing in the lead up and even across race weekend to cope with that?
• 3:50
  Um, yeah, I think when everyone heard we were going back to Malaysia, that was, uh, like, oh, okay, that's a hot race.
• 3:57
  And then I think once everyone realized it was- Back to back to Singapore.
• 4:00
  Yeah.
• 4:01
  And, you know, we obviously raced in Baku the weekend before as well.
• 4:04
  So, yeah, a triple header with two of them in probably the harshest climates we go to.
• 4:09
  Um, yeah, I think there was a little bit of a wince on everyone's face, but, um.
• 4:13
  Malaysia, honestly, was not quite as bad as I expected.
• 4:16
  I think Sunday cooled down a little bit.
• 4:18
  But no, Singapore is always an incredibly tough race.
• 4:22
  You know, obviously, there's the physical challenge of the temperature and the humidity.
• 4:27
  And especially this week, it seems to be very...
• 4:30
  It's very hazy.
• 4:31
  We've got a lot of smoke around from the fires, but also not much wind at all.
• 4:35
  So, everything's just been...
• 4:37
  very stagnant, which has not been the most fun getting ready.
• 4:40
  But, you know, you do a lot of work in the weeks leading up, be it heat training.
• 4:46
  You know, Monaco this year has actually been very humid, so it's not been too far away from these kind of conditions anyway.
• 4:53
  Yeah, you do your heat training in heat chambers, going outside, sauna work, whatever it might be to get ready.
• 5:01
  And yeah, then during the weekend, it's almost kind of the opposite.
• 5:05
  You try and expose yourself to the heat as little as possible, stay cold, ice baths, you know, eating and drinking cold things just to try and keep your body temperature down as much as you can.
• 5:16
  Lots of learnings since I saw you in Melbourne with these brand new cars.
• 5:19
  Give us a sense of where you and perhaps the team are at.
• 5:22
  And do you feel like you're making progress with them?
• 5:25
  Yes, I think I am making progress.
• 5:27
  I think the start of the year, especially Melbourne, it was a real baptism of fire for these new power units especially.
• 5:34
  And I think at the beginning of the season, by far the most lap time was found in getting the power unit correct and getting the energy management right, all the settings you needed.
• 5:47
  There was multiple tents a lap in getting that part of things right.
• 5:52
  So, it almost kind of took...
• 5:54
  all the focus away from actually the setup of the car and what the car feels like.
• 6:00
  And then once things became a little bit more normal, then we really started to get stuck into the setup of the car and what you need to drive it quickly.
• 6:08
  And it's been a pretty different beast to what we've had the last few years.
• 6:14
  And that's taken a lot of getting used to.
• 6:15
  I think where I'm slowly getting used to it, you know, when you've got to think pretty consciously about driving a race car, it's not normally the fastest way, but it's becoming more and more natural.
• 6:25
  And, you know, we're doing a lot of hard work to help me unlock some of that pace.
• 6:29
  But I think the last couple of weekends, even if the results haven't quite been exactly everything we wanted, I think have definitely been good steps in the right direction.
• 6:37
  So I think we're getting there.
• 6:40
  With Oscar Piastri for this special edition, Singapore edition of Rusty's Garage.
• 6:44
  Just expanding on what you were talking about there a moment ago and coming to grips with the new gen cars, the complexities that you kind of gave us an overview of there.
• 6:52
  What's been the most challenging aspect?
• 6:55
  And is there something that you found really rewarding that you've unlocked with them?
• 7:00
  I mean, there's been so many challenges.
• 7:01
  We could have a whole series just on the challenges of these cars.
• 7:05
  But I think, you know, I think the, yeah, a lot of the things to do with the power units.
• 7:12
  I think, you know, now there's been a few rule tweaks.
• 7:15
  Everything's a bit more natural, kind of as much as it can be.
• 7:21
  But I think the difficult thing with this year has always been it takes away a few strengths here and there.
• 7:29
  It changes a lot of corners, especially some of the high-speed corners.
• 7:33
  Either makes them a lot harder because you've actually got more straight-line speed into them or...
• 7:38
  Basically not a corner anymore.
• 7:39
  So, everything is quite different to last year from that side of things.
• 7:44
  And yeah, not always, you know, being the bravest or being the fastest is actually the best way around for the power unit.
• 7:54
  you've got to think a little bit harder about how you want to get around the corner and where you want to gain your lap time.
• 8:01
  But also the cars themselves, they handle very differently to what we've had in the past.
• 8:06
  And when you combine kind of the car characteristics with the power unit characteristics, there's quite a certain way you want to be able to drive the car, which is probably not the way I would choose to drive a race car if I had to.
• 8:18
  But that's what's quick at the moment.
• 8:20
  So, you know, I've got to adapt to that.
• 8:24
  Now, a couple to finish here because time is going to beat us very quickly.
• 8:26
  Season schedule, event schedules generally are crazy.
• 8:30
  How important for you to find windows to kind of escape that?
• 8:33
  Can you easily switch off?
• 8:34
  And then a second part to that, the sport is box office now, which is great in so many ways for fans equally and, you know, perhaps even brutally for you.
• 8:44
  It means that the spotlight is on, the pressure is on kind of –
• 8:47
  constantly.
• 8:48
  Do you, you know, can you escape that and has it hardened your exterior or have you been able to avoid that?
• 8:57
  I mean, to answer the second part, you know, there's, yeah, it's, I mean, firstly, it's a good thing.
• 9:05
  You know, the sport is incredibly popular.
• 9:07
  It's risen massively in the last five, nearly 10 years now.
• 9:13
  So, I think, you know, there's so many positives that come with that.
• 9:15
  You know, obviously, it does get pretty intense at points and, yeah, walking around the streets, not as easy as it once was.
• 9:24
  But, you know, again, they're good problems to have.
• 9:28
  And, yeah, I mean, trying to get some downtime is very important.
• 9:33
  You know, we've got a lot of meetings, a lot of briefings, you know, debriefs after the sessions talking about what the car was like, what we want to change and things like that.
• 9:43
  So, yeah, trying to find those windows is important.
• 9:45
  Hopefully, this weekend, there's a bit of Bathurst that I can shoot into.
• 9:48
  That would be good.
• 9:49
  Will you do that?
• 9:49
  Will you watch a little bit of that?
• 9:52
  If the times work, then I'll try.
• 9:53
  I've got to find how I can watch it first.
• 9:56
  Is that on the bucket list one day?
• 9:58
  Maybe one day.
• 10:00
  Long way down the track.
• 10:01
  Yeah, long way down the track.
• 10:02
  But, I mean, even just to do a lap at Bathurst is – I definitely want to tick that box.
• 10:07
  But, yeah, if I can tune into that this weekend, then that's a good way of switching off as well.
• 10:12
  Good on you.
• 10:13
  Time is going to beat us.
• 10:13
  We sat in this very room 12 months ago because you're unbelievably good.
• 10:17
  um to us i thought the pod chat had gone well i turned off the recorder my daughter is here at that time helping me with social media because i'm terrible and you two strike up this conversation about i think a pack of tim tams that were there for the media at the time i'm buying a ticket to you getting to savor a double coat tim tam by the end of the year thank you mate thank you very much for talking to us good on you cheers