{"id":536666,"date":"2026-03-13T00:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536666\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T00:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T00:47:08","slug":"oscar-piastris-former-coach-helps-george-russell-to-victory-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536666\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u2019s former coach helps George Russell to victory in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kim Keedle had just left the stage at a business conference in Melbourne when he got the call. Mercedes\u2019 Formula 1 team needed him.<\/p>\n

The high-performance coach and physiotherapist had been part of Oscar Piastri\u2019s team for years, helping the Australian move into the highest level of motor sport, before retiring from the paddock at the end of 2024 to set up back home in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

Australian Kim Keedle with 2026 Melbourne Grand Prix winner George Russell of Mercedes.<\/p>\n

But when Mercedes put out an SOS call with George Russell\u2019s trainer stuck in Qatar due to the war in the Middle East, it was difficult to resist.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge\u2019s manager reached out to me just saying, \u2018Hey, are you in Melbourne? George\u2019s trainer has been caught in Qatar, and more than likely isn\u2019t going to be able to get to the race, so if you could be on standby for us, that would be great\u2019,\u201d Keedle said.<\/p>\n

Before saying yes, Keedle wanted to make sure Piastri didn\u2019t have any issues with him helping a rival.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Piastri] came back and said no, that\u2019s fine, go ahead,\u201d Keedle said. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty small industry, right, so sometimes if you\u2019ve got someone that\u2019s trapped in the Middle East, everyone\u2019s willing to help out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was lucky that I knew George from around the circuit; you get to know the drivers as you go. So, we already had a bit of a relationship, so it was quite nice just to be able to come in and slot into his inner sanctum, or his small team, come Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Russell\u2019s interim coach, Keedle was responsible for helping with his physical warm-up, mental preparation and making sure he went through the motions before practice, qualifying, and the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kim Keedle had just left the stage at a business conference in Melbourne when he got the call.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-536666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}