Christian Horner made one scarily accurate Oscar Piastri prediction after Red Bull ‘regret’

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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri knows he’s just seven races away from becoming Formula 1’s newest world champion.

Oscar Piastri has emerged as the greatest talent from his generation of drivers.

The Australian joined the exclusive club of back-to-back Formula 3 and Formula 2 champions while he was a part of the Alpine driver academy.

McLaren managed to find a way to extract Piastri from his Alpine contract, and the rest is history.

Otmar Szafnauer previously described how McLaren signed Piastri, but he was also on the radar of several other teams at the time.

One of those teams was reportedly Red Bull, who have a habit of hoovering up the best young talent coming through the ranks.

Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel are the most obvious examples, although Isack Hadjar’s imminent Red Bull promotion suggests they might have discovered another gem.

Previous team principal Christian Horner spoke about the young Australian earlier in his career, and made a very accurate prediction about his F1 future, as well as admitting that he regrets not luring him to Red Bull when he had the chance.

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Christian Horner predicted Oscar Piastri to do ‘very well’ at McLaren after Red Bull ‘regret’

Horner was interviewed during a 2022 episode of the Beyond The Grid podcast, and the topic of Piastri came up.

The 24-year-old had just won the F2 title and was on his way to McLaren to partner with Lando Norris after Daniel Ricciardo was let go.

Horner explained: “There was an opportunity for Red Bull to look at him at the time, and we didn’t take up that option, which is something that I regret. What he went on to achieve is phenomenal in Formula 3 and Formula 2.

“Now, if he had been a driver here, there is no way that he wouldn’t have been under lock and key for a period of time. I wasn’t party [to the situation; it’s difficult to judge what was promised or reneged on and so on, but it certainly was unexpected – probably from several areas.

“[Piastri is] a great driver. The only problem he now has to deal with is [that] the expectation on him will be immense.

“He’s going to have to get in and deliver against Lando, which is no mean feat. But you either sink or swim in this business. He’s a very, very capable driver, [so] I’m sure he’s going to do very well.”

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Where would Oscar Piastri have fit in at Red Bull if he hadn’t joined McLaren?

It’s fascinating to look at the hypothetical situation of how Piastri would have slotted into the Red Bull set-up if he had joined the team over McLaren.

After winning the 2022 Formula 2 championship, it would have been natural for Piastri to have joined RB, now Racing Bulls, the following year.

That would have immediately solved one conundrum, as Helmut Marko brought in Nyck de Vries following an impressive one-race cameo at Monza.

Marko admitted hiring De Vries was his ‘biggest mistake’, and he had to be replaced by Ricciardo halfway through the year.

Towards the end of the 2024 campaign, it was clear that Sergio Perez needed to be moved on, and Piastri would have been more than ready to step up into his seat.

It means Formula 1 fans have been denied the chance to see just how close Piastri and Verstappen would be in the same machinery this year.

However, Norris would probably wish the Australian wasn’t racing alongside him so that his own chances of winning the drivers’ championship would improve.