The sliding doors moment that could have seen Oscar Piastri contesting Bathurst instead of racing F1

Australian F1 superstar Oscar Piastri could easily have been on the grid for the Bathurst 1000 this weekend if a sliding door moment early in his career had gone a different way.

Born in Melbourne in 2001, Piastri started his racing career in karting before moving to Europe to compete in junior formulas.

He achieved consecutive championship victories in Formula Renault Eurocup (2019), FIA Formula 3 (2020) and FIA Formula 2 (2021).

Piastri made his Formula 1 debut with McLaren in 2023, achieving two podiums in his rookie season and since improving his tally to two race wins and nine podiums to help McLaren to the top of the Constructors’ Championship.

But with competition for F1 spots extremely tight, Piastri first fancied the roar of the V8 Supercars at Mount Panorama.

Had Piastri not had success in Europe in his teenage years, he could easily have been on the grid for Bathurst.

Ahead of this year’s Monte Carlo GP, Piastri revealed that when he left for Europe as a teenager, he planned to return home to race in the Supercars championship if things didn’t work out.

“When I went to Europe, my first goal in motorsport was to become a professional, to get paid to drive racing cars,” he said. News Corp.

“In short, I didn’t really care which car it was. If I could, I would of course set my sights on F1, but my first goal was to just become a professional in motorsport, whether that was in GT cars or whatever in Europe, or in Supercars in Australia.

‘So I knew that going to Europe, once I got to a certain point, I knew that even if I didn’t get into F1 here, I’d made a bit of a name for myself in some of the junior classes. categories, so there will be opportunities elsewhere.

‘So that was always kind of a backup plan to go back to Australia if it didn’t work out. But once I got going, obviously in F1, the sky was the limit.’

Piastri was identified as a prodigious talent from a young age, with former Aussie F1 champion Mark Webber (left) taking him under his wing

While Piastri grew up karting, he was willing to drive almost anything for a chance at a professional career

In retrospect, it appears that Piastri had little to worry about and clawed his way into the F1 reckoning during his formative years.

However, he has revealed that it wasn’t all plain sailing as his CV suggests.

In the year leading up to his 2019 Formula Renault win, he faced challenges and was unable to make significant progress in the category with Arden, a team founded by Red Bull’s Christian Horner.

This situation led him to wonder if he was wasting his chance to succeed in single-seater racing.

“There was probably one season in Formula Renault, my first in 2018, where it was a tough season,” he said.

‘There weren’t many trophies that year. I had to take some school exams. So it’s been quite a busy year outside of racing.

“And compared to my standards and what I wanted from myself, it just wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. “I’ve never really wondered if I should stay in Europe, but it’s definitely kind of a ‘I can’t really afford to keep having this’ kind of thing because the opportunity is gone very quickly.”

Red Bull missed the opportunity to sign Piastri, a decision Christian Horner has expressed regret.

This pivotal moment led the Australian to move to the R-ace GP team, where he won the championship the following year and paved his path to F1.

Although it meant he had to postpone his ambitions to compete in Supercars at Bathurst, the 23-year-old has no regrets about the direction he chose.

“Once I got a taste of racing in Europe and racing against the best guys in the world, on the best tracks in the world, for me that was what I wanted to do next,” he said.

“It was obviously a big decision to move to Europe, but I knew I wanted to try and compete with the best.

‘Many people love motorsport for different reasons. Some people like cars and then a little bit of racing, some people like racing and then a little bit of racing. Some people just like racing or don’t like cars.

‘And I think I like cars, don’t get me wrong. But I really enjoyed the match. I competed with others and with myself in my attempts to do better.

‘I always played other sports before racing and I just loved the competition and not so much the sport. So once I got a taste of that, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”