McLaren's Oscar Piastri is adamant he is now ready to fight for the world championship as he enters his third season in Formula 1.
Piastri has impressed from the moment he first climbed into a papaya-clad machine at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, and as McLaren turned around its fortunes the Australian too turned from a highly-rated prospect into an established frontrunner, coolly collecting his first two grand prix wins last year and finishing fourth in the championship.
But the 23-year-old's rise hasn't always been plain sailing or linear, as his breakout victories in Hungary and Baku were also followed by weekends where he found it harder to extract the maximum out of himself and the MCL38 on every single weekend, and saw team-mate Lando Norris get the upper hand on him in qualifying, more so than during his debut season.
Having seen team-mate Norris make a late lunge at Max Verstappen to try and keep the Dutchman from a fourth straight world title, Piastri feels he is now capable of operating on the same level and mount a title bid of his own even if he admits he is still not the "finished product".
"I do think that I can become world champion this year," he insisted as McLaren launched its 2025 car on Thursday. "I feel like 12 months ago I was going into the season still with some weaknesses that I wasn't particularly confident with. Through last season I addressed them and it's now just about addressing them every weekend.
"I'm confident and I think we've still got some things to work on. I'm definitely not the finished product but I don't think anyone necessarily is. If we can work on some of the things that we've set out to do in this off-season, then I'll have a lot of tools to be able to try and make that happen."
His qualifying deficit to Norris was one area Piastri pinpointed towards the end of last season as an area for improvement, but having now spent more time in McLaren's simulator, he has identified more opportunities to be a more consistent contender and start more grand prix weekends on the front foot, which has further bolstered his confidence in his 2025 chances.
"There were definitely a couple of weekends where I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be," he admitted. "I think it's building up the resilience to be able to adapt a bit quicker in the weekends. We've gone into a lot of detail on how we can be better prepared for this season and some of the more specific driving opportunities.
"I said at the end of last season qualifying is something I wanted to work on, but I think going through a lot of the details and things, it's not just qualifying better. There are some specifics that if I can improve on those, it'll make everything better. Then you get the confidence and everything naturally helps itself. There are definitely some opportunities we've identified and if I can work on those, then hopefully those weekends at some point from last season will disappear.
"Ultimately what's going to be important this season is putting your best foot forward every weekend, because there are going to be weekends where you're not the quickest. It's how you can still make the most of those weekends where you're not on top."
