Oscar Piastri drops cheeky Alpine saga reference as mum joins social media sensation ranks

Oscar Piastri says it’s “cool” his mum has become a bit of a social media sensation, after all a viral tweet is how he made his “social media name a few years ago”.

The McLaren rookie’s mum had fans in stitches when she replied to a tweet of Piastri’s in which he posted a photograph of himself on Johann Zarco’s Ducati with the caption: “On a break from 4 wheels so thought I’d have a go at 2.”

His mum wasn’t impressed, even middle-naming her son.

Oscar Piastri’s laughs at his mum’s social media moment

“Oh no you don’t!!!” she replied to his tweet. “Move away from the bike Oscar Jack Piastri. My heart can barely cope with cars.”

It’s not the first time a member of the Piastri family has gone viral on social media with the Formula 1 driver doing so himself last season when he publicly denied he’d be racing for Alpine after the team confirmed him as Fernando Alonso’s replacement for the 2023 season.

As such he says he can’t hold it against his mum for grabbing her moment even if it was at his expense.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” he told the official F1 website. “I mean I kind of made… That’s where I made my social media name for myself on Twitter a few years ago, and now my mum’s doing the same, mainly by making fun of me, but that’s okay, she’s my mum, she’s allowed to!”

Jokes aside, Piastri and his McLaren team go into this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix looking to join Red Bull on the podium in their much-improved MCL60.

However, in a season in which momentum has swung between Aston Martin, Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren, the Aussie concedes it is anyone’s guess which of the four teams will be best of the rest.

“I think it can be any one of them, to be honest,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com. “I think maybe not Aston at the moment, but I think they’re still not far behind being second quickest.

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“It depends on these new cars from this year and last year, it seems like there’s a lot of track specificity. One weekend it can be us like Silverstone, the next weekend Mercedes can look strong like Budapest where they were very strong, at Spa Ferrari looked good again.

“So it’s really hard to say. I think there’s not really a clear second quickest team as it’s kind of changing every week.”

With a podium at Spa’s sprint race adding seven points to his tally, Piastri is P11 in the Drivers’ Championship with 34 points with his teammate Lando Norris eighth on 69 points.

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