Early F1 2025 World Champion bet placed in ‘absolutely love the guy’ verdict

If Eddie Jordan was to throw some money at predicting the F1 2025 World Champion, he talked up Oscar Piastri as his pick.

Now in his second season as an F1 driver with McLaren, Piastri has turned heads while becoming a two-time grand prix winner, scoring his maiden win in Hungary before taking the chequered flag in Baku, with the Aussie playing a key role in McLaren’s Constructors’ Championship push, the team leading the way by 41 points over Red Bull with six rounds of F1 2024 to go.

Eddie Jordan picks Oscar Piastri for F1 2025 title

And during the Formula For Success podcast , featuring ex-F1 team boss Eddie Jordan alongside former Red Bull drivers David Coulthard and Mark Webber, the latter Piastri’s manager, impressive F1 rookie Oliver Bearman – who scored points on debut with Ferrari in Saudi Arabia – cropped up in the conversations, as did Mercedes’ teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli.

Both will be on the F1 2025 grid, Bearman with Haas and Antonelli with Mercedes, as Jordan praised the opportunities that young drivers are now getting, using that as the platform to make Piastri his early bet for the F1 2025 World Championship.

Jordan said: “Isn’t it fantastic? Instead of whinging about no entry, no possibility… My next little whinge will be, why are there not some new teams? But leaving that to one side, we finally got one part of the action over, and that is, please make a gateway open for real talent to emerge.

“And look, had we not done that, and for example, Mark, in your case, Oscar, what a revelation. I mean, not that long ago, I think DC and I had a little bit of a discussion about where I thought that Oscar was going to go, and long before he ever won a race, I feel, and I still feel, I’m now even more convinced that, look, if I could get a proper bet on him for the World Championship next year, I’d have a go at that.

“Because that’s how strongly I think… And I don’t spend money stupidly, hopefully anyway, not yet, but I just think he’s mustard. I absolutely love the guy.”

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris head-to-head in F1 2024

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

Coulthard would compare Piastri’s driving style to that of seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton in the sense of being “pretty clean” in wheel-to-wheel combat, and asked Webber whether this is a trait which Piastri always possessed even in the junior ranks?

Piastri pulled off the achievement of winning his Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in consecutive seasons.

“I heard that about Lewis in karting, that he was just always hard but fair,” Webber replied, “and I believe, you know, I’m not putting Oscar in Lewis’s category, obviously he’s got to earn that. Here’s Lewis with over 100 GP wins.

“Oscar’s just on the start of his journey. But ultimately, at the moment, it looks like, through his junior categories, his way of racing week in, week out, his damage bill is incredibly low.

“So I think the respect from the other drivers that he’s raced against through the junior formulas has been always there, and he’s getting that respect, which he wants to get respect, he doesn’t want to have people all applaud, as we are doing now, he just wants to earn his stripes, go out there and do his talking on the track.

“And that’s what he’s done so well in the last five years.”

Piastri sits P4 in the F1 2024 Drivers’ standings , eight points behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and 42 off McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, who is looking to challenge Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for the title. The gap is 52 points with six grands prix and three sprints to go.

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