Pedro De La Rosa thinks we’ll see the ‘real’ version of £90k-a-week driver in 2024

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Pedro De La Rosa believes that we’ll see the ‘real’ version of McLaren driver Oscar Piastri in 2024.

After a fantastic debut campaign, Oscar Piastri marked a strong weekend in Saudi Arabia with a 4^th place finish.

Speaking on the F1 Nation Podcast, De La Rosa believes the consistency of staying in the same series for a second consecutive year will really help the Australian.

De La Rosa thinks ‘real’ Piastri will come out in 2024

There was a lot of attention on teenager Oliver Bearman in Jeddah as he became one of the youngest drivers in Formula 1 history.

The 18-year-old finished 7^th for Ferrari on Saturday, making up four places from his qualifying position and earning widespread praise.

However, his performance distracted from the brilliant job that Piastri did for McLaren, finishing 4^th in arguably the fourth-quickest car on the grid.

He out-qualified teammate Lando Norris before overtaking Fernando Alonso and biding his time behind Lewis Hamilton knowing he still needed to pit.

While he couldn’t catch up to Charles Leclerc to challenge for a podium, his 12-point haul helped him leapfrog Norris in the Drivers’ Championship.

De La Rosa now believes 2024 will be the season that Formula 1 sees the real Oscar Piastri.

The £90,000-a-week driver can finally concentrate on racing in the same series for more than one campaign, although that instability was due to his success rather than anything else.

Piastri going from strength to strength

Speaking about the 22-year-old, De La Rosa said: “I think we will see the real Oscar Piastri this season because I think he’s a driver that has never had time to persevere in the same category.

“So, he had one year in FRECA, one year in Formula 3, one year in Formula 2, so now we’re going to see finally Oscar in a second year in Formula 1.

“And I think that’s the reason why I think he will be a lot more mature, a lot stronger and an incredible rival for Lando [Norris] inside the team, but also a great team player.

“I mean what he did today was impressive because he overtook Fernando [Alonso] on the first laps of the race, it’s not easy to overtake Fernando.

“He did it, he pulled a gap, he had the patience to attack Lewis [Hamilton] during many laps until he overtook him and I think how he managed the race was very impressive.”

If Piastri can take the steps forward in 2024 that De La Rosa expects then he’ll be a serious challenger if McLaren can continue to upgrade their car.

Team principal Andrea Stella has hailed Piastri as being ‘more mature’ already this season and that’s shown on and off the track.

There were still concerns during pre-season testing about his car but right now he’s extracting everything he can from the MCL38.