Book review: Oscar Piastri The Rookie by Andrew Van Leeuwen

Kudos to Lando on his recent maiden F1 win in Miami! Yes, it may have been helped by a well timed KMag inspired safety car but prior to that, it was his teammate Oscar Piastri in the sister McLaren that was putting the pressure on Max and the Ferraris at the front for a potential dark horse win. Despite being in his sophomore year in F1, Andrew Van Leeuwen has penned the first Piastri biography to be released titled “Oscar Piastri – the Rookie”. 

This book is an unofficial biography and while there is no exclusive interview quotes with Oscar, the author has managed to include interviews with Prema F2 principal Rene Rosin (where Oscar won 2021 F2 championship) and ex-F1 driver/pundit Karun Chandhook.

There are 28 chapters with the first 5 chapters covering Oscar’s junior career, Alpine reserve driver, contract dispute with Alpine for 2023 and testing with McLaren. The rest of the book covers each race in the 2023 season and dedicates one chapter per race.  In each chapter, Oscar’s qualifying, sprint race and feature race performance are discussed and a short history of the track is provided. All this content manages to push the page count close to 350 pages.

The book cover itself is a bit nondescript for a biography — it doesn’t even feature Oscar’s face. You could easily miss it on the shelves of your local bookshop. Like all good paperback biographies though, it does include 14 gloss pages of various colour photos from Oscar’s career to date. The majority of the photos are last season’s race photos from Getty Images.

Given Oscar’s F1 career has only just started and yet to hit the major milestones like a race win or championship, this book doesn’t go into any in-depth season coverage of his  junior campaigns in his F3 and F2 season. His F3 battle with Logan Sargeant gets a mention but his F2 season is basically glossed over and instead there are lots of quotes from Karen Chandhook’s discussing his experience of GP2 to F1. 

Wow Factor/Money shot: Photo selection

Suitable for: Oscar fans and current era F1 fans.