Oscar Piastri is set to step up his bromance with Australia’s cricketers by hosting them for a guided tour of McLaren headquarters in London next month, as the Formula 1 driver and the world’s No.1 Test team each gear up for world championship bouts.
A few days before the world Test championship final at Lord’s against South Africa, a selection of players and coaches will train at the home of cricket in the morning and then head to Woking in Surrey, about an hour’s drive to the south-west, to meet Piastri and take a look around the nerve centre of the storied McLaren team.
Pat Cummins and David Warner speak to Australian Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri during an Australian training session at Lord’s in 2023.Credit: Getty Images
They will do so with Piastri in the thick of the chase for his first F1 drivers’ world championship title, leading the field with four victories so far this season ahead of Sunday night’s Monaco Grand Prix.
While final details are still being worked through, the planned trip will be the latest chapter in a series of reciprocal visits between Piastri and the Australian Test team.
They first crossed paths at training before the Lord’s Ashes match in 2023 – later to become infamous for Jonny Bairstow’s stumping by Alex Carey – and Piastri and McLaren have welcomed numerous Australian players into their garage at the Australian Grand Prix over the past couple of years.
Last July, Test skipper Pat Cummins was on a UK holiday when he dropped in to visit Piastri at Silverstone on British Grand Prix weekend.
In return, Piastri spent time watching the Australian team from their pitchside viewing area during December’s Boxing Day Test, when Sam Konstas took on Jasprit Bumrah and set up a memorable victory for Cummins’ side.
“I participated,” Piastri said modestly of his cricketer skills during the Test. “I was more of a bowler than a batter but never at a very high level. It was kind of the only sport left that I could play in my off-season from racing.
“I always tried playing, even when I moved to the UK at school. My one claim to fame is I played one game in the first XI, but that was because all of the year 12 equivalents had left for their exams, so I got a gig.
“I always try and represent Australia when I can and support other sports, especially cricket, because I’ve grown up playing it.”
Any Lord’s Test match involving Australia tends to attract a wide audience of notable names. In 2023, Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou was among those in attendance, along with former Prime Minister John Howard, former treasurer Joe Hockey and ex-Geelong skipper Joel Selwood.
“Growing up in Melbourne, irrespective of the footy codes you played in the winter, it was all cricket in the summer,” Postecoglou said during the 2023 Lord’s Test. “I loved it growing up and have great memories out in the backyard.
“I grew up on the Lillee, Thomson, Marsh, Chappells, Borders, those types of guys, it was a great time. We’d stay up in the middle of the night watching the Ashes over here in England, lots of great childhood memories.
“There’s a lot of synergy these days in professional sport, I speak to a lot of guys from other codes all the time including cricket and we all do the same thing, just in a different sport. It’s about managing people and creating environments that hopefully are successful.”
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