PlanetF1.com spoke to Andy Searson, Director of Sport at Haileybury School in the UK where Oscar Piastri attended, to find out what he was like before Formula 1
Of the many ways Oscar Piastri has been described since moving into Formula 1 in 2023, unflustered is perhaps one of the most frequently used adjectives.
Piastri is still only 24, he is the eighth youngest driver on the 2026 grid, and yet he speaks with the cadence of someone who has been around for decades. The final third of the 2025 season may have been the toughest moment of his career to date and yet, there was no mask that slipped. Something that came as no surprise to his former teacher.
“The impression you get of him as reserved, calm and composed isn’t a façade at all – that’s him in a nutshell,” Andy says of his former pupil.
“He’s astonishingly composed, with immense drive inside, but it’s not the kind you usually see in other drivers or elite sportspeople. It’s not heart-on-the-sleeve stuff where you think, ‘crikey, this guy’s got a real edge.’
“He’s very contained, very composed, and very grounded. What you see is what you get.”
The advancement of the internet and air travel can make it seem as if Australia is only a minute away from mainland Europe and the traditional home of Formula 1 but of the 781 drivers in the sport’s past, just 20 of them have come from the country. Of those, only five have ever won the race and until now, only two have been World Champion. In 2025, it looked as if that number would grow to three.
It is easy to forget the monumental task that faces any Australian or New Zealander hoping to make it into F1. Piastri’s move to Europe came at the age of 14 when he joined Haileybury School in Hertfordshire, north of London. He moved from a city of five million to a sleepy town of less than 3,000.
“Crossing the globe and landing in Europe can be a very alien environment, particularly boarding away from home. His dad came over to Europe as well, at least for chunks of time, so he wasn’t completely cut off from everything familiar.
“He comes from a close family, and he was with us for four years, going through what was no doubt his teenage phase, yet he was incredibly mature and internally focused on where he wanted to go.
“From a school point of view, it was never a case of school coming second or just turning up when he wasn’t at Monza or wherever – he was fully committed to his studies and to his friendships.
“As you can probably imagine from knowing him on the grid, he was just a lovely guy to have around: calm, a galvaniser of people. Travelling to the other side of the world, he clearly had an aim in mind, as did his family.
“When you think about it – winning Formula 3 then Formula 2 in consecutive years at such a young age – it’s no surprise. He has real conviction, but carries it with great humility. He’s a genuinely delightful guy.”
The school he moved to was no coincidence. Haileybury has a long history of nurturing some of the best sporting talent including one Stirling Moss. Piastri joined on a sports scholarship and by the end of 2015, he was balancing homework with competing in karting events across the continent. Not that his teachers would have noticed.
“There was a real certainty about how he went about his business. I certainly wouldn’t sit here and claim we helped his driving technique or automotive skills, but where we really saw it was in his approach. He might be away for a long weekend, racing on a karting circuit or winning a Grand Prix at that level, and then on Monday morning he’d be straight back into double maths, fully engaged.
“What was most telling for us was that he never came back distracted by it all. As a teenager, it’s a very glamorous world, but he’d return on Monday with all his homework done and completely up to speed. He never dropped anything. Despite spending weekends in garages and pit lanes, with all the excitement that comes with that, he’d come back and his maths was done, his computer science was done, and he was ready to go.
“He has an ability to keep a lot of balls in the air and a huge bandwidth for taking on information and processing it appropriately, all underpinned by a real calmness within himself.”
“That’s really where we saw our contribution.”
Formula 1 drivers are not the only ones to have come through the school system. Among their alumni, Haileybury has an England cricket, an Olympian and several rugby union stars. As for how the school helped Piastri, while motorsport was not specifically catered for, they played a crucial part in getting his body ready for the challenge,
“We have an excellent strength and conditioning setup, across both specialist and more traditional sports like rugby, cricket, hockey and netball. While we don’t have a specific drivers’ programme, we do have the flexibility to support someone competing regularly in Europe, and he benefited greatly from that work.
“The second area we helped was educational. Every pupil has a tutor, and his relationship with his tutor was particularly important — not just for keeping on top of work, but also for thinking about future choices and having a plan B. That worked extremely well for him. He never dropped anything, stayed on top of it all, and came away with excellent GCSEs and A-levels.”
But all the while he was at the school, there was another sport that Andy believes was his first love.
“Cricket is his absolute passion,” Andy said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he said it was his first love ahead of driving. He absolutely loved it.”
That statement should come as no surprise to anyone keeping up with Oscar Piastri’s off-season activities. While the rest of the grid was holidaying, Piastri was back home in Australia in his birthplace of Melbourne.
Dressed in his Sunday best, Piastri was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Fourth Ashes Test, not for the first time.
As one of the most famous Australian athletes on the planet, attending other sporting events becomes a perk of the job. In 2023, Australian bowlers Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins invited Piastri to the World Cup in India. He may have been on the other side of the globe for the day job but that didn’t stop him going.
“That would have been boyhood-dream stuff for him,” Andy suggests. “He loved it and talked about cricket all the time in the boarding house. He played in the third XI and would come in on the longest run-up he could manage and steam in trying to bowl fast.”
You do not have to look far to find a sportstar with an ego but throughout our conversation with Andy, he was at pains to state how Piastri was never like that.
“Staff, adults and teenagers alike – I doubt you’d find anyone who would say a negative word about him. And he did it all in a completely non-flashy way.
“You know the classic teenage swagger you see in a lot of boys? He just didn’t have that. You’d line him up next to others and think, ‘crikey, you’re the one winning all these Grand Prix and likely heading for F1,’ yet others had far more swagger than he did.
“He was super humble. As far as I’m aware, he never came back from a weekend racing and bragged to his mates about what he’d been doing. Everyone knew what he was achieving – the other lads weren’t daft – but he certainly wasn’t strutting around flashing his credentials. He was very measured, composed, humble and charming.”
While Piastri’s demeanour has impressed a lot of outside observers, his rapid progress has attracted even more eyeballs.
His tally of 97 was the second-best of a rookie season at the time. His second season brought his first two wins. His third made him a genuine title challenger. Max Verstappen may represent the gold standard of quick progression but even the Dutchman was not competing for the biggest honours in his third year.
That quick advancement though is no surprise says Andy. Those who knew him growing up believed success was inevitable.
“I was intrigued by how surprised you said you were at his progress,” Andy responded. “Because those of us who knew him beforehand were perhaps less surprised.
“But more than anything, what Oscar has done has inspired pupils across a number of sports – and beyond sport, just in life. His ability to reach the very top is hugely inspiring.
“It’s powerful for pupils to sit there and think, ‘you’re literally sitting in the chair Oscar sat in four years ago.’
“For those whose sport is part of our programmes, they benefit enormously from what we offer. We have some amazing people here – that’s what really makes the difference – with fantastic coaches and support systems. But it always comes back to the individual.
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“We’re wonderfully proud – absolutely. And I’ll say it again: he’s such a nice guy. He deserves every success that comes his way. He’s earned it, and he deserves it.
“If you’re looking for a role model for young lads to look up to, he’s got everything. He’s as modest, humble and composed as he comes across. The fact we played even a small part in his formative years, and to see him carrying his success in the way and the manner that he does, makes us incredibly proud.
“He’s the epitome of what’s possible, and of what old Haileyburians can and should aspire to be – and many, many of them already are.”
Bouncing front the 2025 disappointment will be the hardest challenge of Piastri’s to date but it would seem anyone met him during his formative years has no doubt he will achieve it.
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