Celebrity Formula 1 fan Jeremy Clarkson has offered his services to more F1 2025 drivers after McLaren star Oscar Piastri credited the television presenter for rescuing his Australian Grand Prix.
Piastri’s hopes of winning his home race evaporated when he and McLaren team-mate Lando Norris ran off track in damp conditions on Lap 44.
Jeremy Clarkson tells F1 drivers to ‘give me a call’ after Oscar Piastri praise
While Norris was able to scoop up the moment and go on to win the race, Piastri found himself stuck in the grass at the penultimate corner and dropped to the back of the field.
The 23-year-old took some time to engage reverse gear before rejoining with the help of a timely Safety Car.
Restarting in 13th, Piastri produced a fine recovery across the remaining six laps to recover to ninth, passing Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari around the outside of Turn 9, the fastest corner of the Albert Park circuit on the final tour.
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Speaking to media after the race, Piastri quipped that he had Clarkson to thank for teaching him how to reverse.
Piastri visited Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm at the end of last year, with the television presenter posting a clip to social media of the McLaren driver struggling to reverse a tractor into a barn.
In the clip, Clarkson and co-star Kaleb Cooper laughed that Piastri had been trying to complete the task for “40 minutes” with Cooper joking: “I thought you said he was a driver.”
Piastri said at Albert Park: “I tried to push a bit too much, I guess. In those conditions, very difficult to judge just how slippery it’s going to be.
“I think from one lap to the next, it had really changed a lot and I could see Lando going off in front of me, but I was also already in the corner, basically, so there wasn’t much I could do to slow myself down at that point.
“Then once you’re in the gravel, in the grass, you obviously try to keep the car as straight as possible, and then obviously to get stuck in the grass like that was pretty unbelievable sat in the car.
“But I’ve only got myself to blame for being there, so it’s a shame.
“I just was trying to stay in the race.
“Tried to go forwards and couldn’t, so good thing I spent some time in the off season trying to learn how to reverse a tractor on Jeremy Clarkson’s farm.
“I think it came in handy today.”
Responding to Piastri’s comments on social media, Clarkson quipped that other drivers are welcome to approach him for a crash course in reversing.
He said: “F1 drivers: If you want to learn how to reverse off road, give me a call. It certainly helped Oscar Piastri today.”
With McLaren looking dominant in F1 2025, Piastri’s mistake leaves him trailing team-mate Norris by 23 points in an early blow to his title hopes.
Yet having come just 0.084 seconds away from beating Norris to pole position, and applied pressure on his team-mate in the wet before being told to hold station, Piastri insisted that he was pleased with his performance in Melbourne overall.
He said: “I think for essentially 56 laps of today’s race, I was very proud of the job I did.
“The pace was really strong and obviously disappointed with the mistake I made, but I think that doesn’t take away completely from how strong the whole weekend’s been for, not just the team, but for myself.
“I feel like I’ve done a good job all weekend, so I think it would be pessimistic of me to just write off the whole weekend because of one mistake.”
More on Oscar Piastri and McLaren
Piastri described McLaren’s team orders instruction as “a pretty minor moment” in the race, but has vowed to discuss the decision with the team after it indirectly led to him hitting the worst of the rain at Turn 12 on Lap 44.
“We were holding position before that. I think by the time we were free to race, it kind of killed my front left a little bit getting to the back of Lando. By that point, there wasn’t much I could do.
“I think that was probably a pretty minor moment in the race.
“I think today’s race and the circumstances were pretty extreme. We were approaching backmarkers, one dry line, not knowing if there’s going to be rain to come.
“So I’ll speak to the team and try and understand better what the thing was, but I think it’s always clear that those kind of calls can come in either direction.”
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