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regularseason · 2 months

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(sorry for rpf ment) but id like to know your opinion bc from ur tags it's clear you understand oscar pretty well. basically i keep seeing fics and things describe him as "analytical" and "focused" but personally i never get that vibe? could you maybe extrapolate a bit on where that comes from?

oh anon thank you for giving me the opportunity to do my favorite thing in the world (talk about oscar)!!

honestly i do think that "analytical" and "focused" describe him very succinctly — these are words you'll find that he and many others have described him by in real life — it's maybe just a matter of understanding what that means for him and not equating either trait to the sum of his personality. to me this is not a bad thing because i genuinely enjoy athletes who are considered analytical and boring (which i've also reclaimed as a term of endearment now. i'll gladly take a boring dude if it means he doesn't like playing golf!) so i think he fits that archetype well, it's just that he's obviously more than that and thus his personality is endearing to people because he has "unexpected" quirks that betray the occasional assumption of his one-dimensionality.

here are a few direct quotes from people around him:

BROWN: "He's very mature, he's very focused and he’s very technical." STELLA: "There is no external noise in his brain. He doesn’t dissipate or dilute his talent into things that are not useful or functional, and that was apparent to us relatively early on." STALLARD: "Everything is meaningful. I’m not sure I’ve met that many [drivers] who I would describe as calm and intense." WEBBER: "He’s a Prost, mate. He’s such a thinker and so calm. At first I thought I needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. That’s just where he is."

rest below the cut because i talk too much...

i would be curious to hear more about why you don't get that vibe from him so i could elaborate more in that direction, would you say it's because he doesn't come across that way in off-track media that mclaren posts of him and lando? i'd argue that at least on-track his being analytical, focused, unflappable, and most of all ~adaptable~ (if you listen to any commentator talk about him you'll quickly hear that this is people's favorite word for him) is what made oscar thrive at the junior level when he was a rookie in both f3/f2, and what's helped him deliver the rookie campaign he's managed so far with mclaren — of course the extensive testing mileage with the a521 helped immensely with this acclimatization but that was a completely different car with different regs, and more impressive to me is not only that he managed to be decent "as a rookie" in an on-average midfield car and didn't commit egregious mistakes when the mcl60 was a backmarker tractor with constant reliability issues but also that he quickly stepped up alongside lando once the aero upgrades came along and immediately recalibrated his expectations from "maybe points if we're lucky" to "podiums whenever possible." that's a bigger mental feat than it seems and definitely speaks to his analytical nature; another example of his inherent reflectiveness is his somewhat subdued reaction to getting his first podium in suzuka because he was more concentrated on his pace deficit to lando and overall tyre-management issues than the superficial milestone of a podium. similar to tom sarcastically going "i can hear that you're excited..." after quali that weekend and oscar quipping back "that's as excited as i get for second place!"

maybe "focused" is difficult to qualify as a personality trait but i'd say it manifests largely in his calmness, especially when you consider the high-adrenaline nature of racing and the effusiveness other drivers on the grid are prone to displaying. how oscar strikes me as is that he's self-critical while still managing requisite internal belief and optimism, which stella and others have spoken highly of and credited for driving forward his rapid development curve over the course of a weekend, especially at new race tracks. maybe you're asking about "analytical" in the context of relationship dynamics in fic so feel free to correct me there (AND ALSO APOLOGIES FOR THIS UNGODLY SPIEL), but another great quote is andrea in his latest btg appearance where he says this of oscar:

"[What impressed us is] his awareness of what the opportunities are, even before he looks at an overlay or looks at any telemetry. He kind of has this capacity to self-recognize where there is more to come from either himself or from the car, and this is not so obvious. I know drivers that can be fast, but they kind of definitely need external support as to see what is possible. [...] He has a large capability from a self-awareness point of view, and then he has this capacity to then drive according to the opportunity identified, which for me is the definition of talent."

in terms of his media personality, you'll commonly see people online say that oscar is a talkative kimi or that he's winning the idgaf war etc. and i think maybe people (not fic writers but like Guys On Reddit) tend to extrapolate a bit too much from his "mentality" and are like this is why he's going to be the next wdc and lando will become washed which is literally absurd and insane and i'm not even going to entertain that with a ten-foot pole. but i think how i'd describe oscar is that he's very intentional in disseminating his image in a highly specific "everything is a product of cringe culture" gen-z way — he knows exactly how he comes across to the camera or how people perceive his tweets online and is willing to play into the meme when he thinks it'll benefit him, for ex. how he knew the camera was on him during the jetpack guy moment and consciously made that face to incite some kind of reaction. obviously oscar isn't wholly preoccupied with making people like him and isn't going to be as loud and rambunctious as a character like dr3, but he's capable of being "silly" and making jokes because he does like being perceived as funny and will engage in low-effort banter or make his drs tweets and post a 240p reaction gif of the jetpack meme because he enjoys social media virality to some degree. like i'm sure the crb debacle was a stressful time for him but another part of him was like "oh sweet more followers" LOL... maybe because of that it feels like there's a dichotomy between his "silly" self who makes bottoming jokes in mclaren youtube videos and who giggles at everything lando says and then his more focused, technically-oriented side, but imo there is very much a positive relationship between these facets of him. i'd say that because he is generally so analytical and calm he therefore has the mental capacity to be introspective in an actionable manner and improve on his weaknesses without getting emotionally carried away, and then in social settings this also allows him to live in the moment and take things less seriously and not overreact to people's opinions of him. if that makes sense...

also for bonus maxf/renault acad lore purposes: here is the insane mia quote about them that maybe explains more of his "ruthless" focus... i feel like sometimes it sounds weird when people call him that because being ruthless is essentially associated with being cruel or lacking empathy but to me oscar's ruthlessness is entirely inward and not a marker of his EQ or social awareness, just a reflection of how effectively he self-motivates and pushes himself:

"Consistency on track is based on how stable you are off track. [...] If you look at Oscar Piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in Melbourne for the past five to six years. [...] That's why he thrived in those weekends racing. He loves being on his own without anybody. On the other hand, we had Max Fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. So those are the things that suddenly you see and, I think that that we see now, after a few years, a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable."

again SORRY for how long this answer is but hopefully it is at least mildly informative!!! T__T

#oscar piastri #ref

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