Racing driver and F2 commentator Alex Brundle believes Oscar Piastri is going to do an ‘incredible’ job for McLaren as he races alongside Lando Norris in F1 in 2023.
The Australian makes his F1 debut this weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix and will be eager to make an early statement with his performance, as he goes up against one of the strongest drivers on the grid in Norris, across the garage.
McLaren had a relatively tough testing period last weekend in Bahrain, so that may temper initial expectations a little bit, but even so there is a lot of excitement around Piastri given the way he rapidly progressed through F3 and then F2 – as he won both titles.
Speaking exclusively to Give Me Sport, Brundle assessed the potential dynamic we’ll see develop between the Aussie and Norris, with the pair representing one of the most exciting driver line-ups on the grid, on paper, in F1 this year.
“Did anything ever reflect more an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object than Oscar Piastri set against Lando Norris in a McLaren? With Lando being the immovable object and Oscar being the unstoppable force.
“It’s going to be so interesting. I don’t think, with the greatest of respect to his other teammates through the years, Oscar will ever have had a teammate as capable as Lando.
“I think that Lando is so well entrenched at McLaren, that that will come as a shock. I mean, you’re dealing with Lando, who, throughout his early racing career was still dropping in to see the McLaren factory whilst moving through the junior series’. So that’s what Oscar is up against.
“Oscar comes at it from a very different angle having been released from his contract with Alpine and there’s a lot of pressure on him now to perform. I think he’s an extremely capable driver, though, and I think he’s going to do an incredible job for McLaren.
“The only thing will be that when Oscar previously has arrived to every single junior team he’s come with a reputation and every team has recognised that they have an opportunity to win the championship, because Oscar Piastri is sitting in their racing car. He now comes to the team with a totally different positioning and it will be for the first time ever so it will be really interesting to see how he deals with that.”
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