Taking his place among the 20 drivers on the Formula 1 grid is a dream that could have easily never happened for Australian Oscar Piastri.
The cost of his rise through the junior ranks has been estimated at more than $5 million in family contributions and sponsorships.
If not for Piastri's turbo-charged collection of junior category championships, he admits those millions may not have been enough.
"My family chipped in a lot … financially," Piastri told ABC 7.30 this week.
"Anyone that knows anything about motorsport knows how expensive it is.
"I'm sure there were plenty of points where they could have turned around said no, this is too much.
"It wasn't easy at some points."
The 21-year-old is taking to Melbourne's Albert Park street circuit this weekend for the Australian Grand Prix.
Sunday's main event will be Piastri's first race on Aussie bitumen since leaving for England at age 14 in pursuit of a motorsport career.
Since then he achieved an unprecedented feat, winning three junior racing categories in successive years — yet he was paying to play.
"Getting closer to F1, it was more and more difficult [financially]," Piastri said, adding this was particularly the case in the Formula 2 category in 2021.
"Definitely, I couldn't have kept doing it forever to get to F1.
"Getting through those junior categories in the speed I did definitely helped.
"If it got to that point, of having to do more and more seasons … I don't know if it would have been a stopping point, but definitely would have been very difficult."
Now in F1, he enters a sport where top earners, like Red Bull's world champion Max Verstappen, can collect around $90 million in a single season.
'This kid could be in F1'
The background of drivers in Formula 1 ranges from the the uber-privileged (like Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, whose billionaire dad owns his team) through to drivers like Lewis Hamilton, whose father worked three jobs to support his son's dream.
The Piastris fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
Piastri grew up in the middle-class suburb of Brighton East, in Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs, and attended exclusive private school Haileybury.
Both Piastri's grandfathers were mechanics and father, Chris, owns a vehicle diagnostics company.
It was one of Chris's business trips to the United States, and his choice of gift to bring home, that drove the youngster's passion for motorsport: a remote control monster truck.
"I started driving that around in the backyard or school oval at one point," Piastri said.
"[I] loved it, and then Dad asked if I wanted to go race it."
Monster trucks soon gave way to remote control car racing, where Piastri's potential was unmistakable.
"He was a nine-year old-kid who was racing … adults and beating them," Piastri's junior karting coach James Sera said.
"He used to stand on a milk crate to actually see over the railing to see his car driving around the track."
In one of many home videos recording Piastri's rise, the youngster stands atop a podium and is barely taller than the second and third-place adults, who were standing on the ground.
Piastri said he has "definitely" carried lessons from those days all the way to F1.
"How set-up changes work … what a racing line was, how to get around corners the best way," he said.
James Sera, a former Australian karting champion, was shocked the first time he saw Piastri in a go-kart.
"I remember hitting the stopwatch or changing the stopwatch to another one because I thought, 'It can't be right, he can't be that fast already'," he said.
"He just had so much control over the kart, and he just knew the [racing] line and he could brake the thing properly.
"I went home that night and said to my wife, 'I've never experienced anything like this, this kid's unbelievable … this kid could be in F1'."
Moving to UK to chase an F1 dream
Formula 1 is a global juggernaut and rising in popularity, but its junior development pathways remain in Europe.
At 14 years old, Piastri moved to England.
His dad made the UK home for six-months, before returning home, while Piastri attended boarding school and made his way to races across the UK and Europe.
"I definitely grew up pretty quickly and had to survive," he said before adding that "survive" was probably overstating things.
"You've got to be very committed when you first go over there … it's definitely hard at the beginning."
Piastri juggled schooling with driving, studying for exams while completing his first year in the lower-tier Formula Renault Eurocup series.
In his second year of Formula Renault he won the championship, before claiming the titles in Formula 3 and Formula 2 over the next two seasons.
He is the only driver to ever win the three categories consecutively.
Two of F1's leading drivers, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Mercedes's George Russell, are the only other drivers to win F2 in their rookie season.
"He's one of only three people … in the world to ever do what he's done," Sera said.
"In the racing scene, it's a pretty big deal."
Sera remains close with the Piastri family and joined them at a Melbourne restaurant last year to celebrate the news Piastri was joining Formula 1.
Piastri delivered the news he had signed with McLaren on a video call.
"I think everyone else in the restaurant was looking at us," Sera said.
"It seemed like we were cheering at nothing, because obviously [Piastri's father] Chris was looking at his phone.
"We were all pretty chuffed."
Piastri admits his championship winning streak will not continue this year. Of the 10 teams, McLaren and AlphaTauri are the only outfits not to secure a point in the season's first two races.
The rookie retired from race one with car troubles while his McLaren suffered damage last round, finishing 15th.
Dream of becoming world champion
Piastri's return to Melbourne ahead of this weekend's sold-out race, where he is the star of a show, has been deliberately low-key.
He stayed at his mother's house one night, has resisted adventuring around his home city, and kept media engagements to a minimum.
Piastri is quietly focused on extracting every extra 0.001 second of improvement and performance from himself and his car in pursuit his next dream.
"The first dream was getting to F1 and the second was becoming world champion," he said.
Sera said there was "not a doubt in my mind" his former charge would reach that pinnacle.
"He's exceptionally good, and he will get it done," Sera said.
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