McLaren's Oscar Piastri Says Driving Tractors With TV Legend Jeremy Clarkson Helped Him Stay In Race

It was a gut punch of a home race for McLaren driver Oscar Piastri, but it could have been a whole hell of a lot worse had he not leaned on a bit of driving knowledge he got from a completely unexpected place.

If you didn't catch the race (which happened in the middle of the night here in the good ol' US of A), it looked like McLaren was on for a pretty easy 1-2 finish thanks to Piastri and his teammate Lando Norris.

The only question was what order the two would be in, because Piastri was closing in on Norris when a late rain shower popped up that left the final few corners of the Melbourne circuit especially wet. This sent both McLarens careening through the gravel, but while Norris was able to regather his MCL39 and stay in the lead before ducking into the pits, Piastri wasn't quite so lucky, and he spun into the grass just outside the pit entrance.

In conditions like that, the car is normally stuck, unless the driver thinks on their feet and slowly reverses, effectively turning the car into a front-wheel drive vehicle.

This is what Piastri did, which helped him get to an escape road and was able to get back on track, and dip into the pits for intermediate tires.

Unfortunately, this tanked his race and cost Piastri and McLaren a boatload of points. However, his quick thinking minimized the damage and allowed him to finish P9, which is good for 2 points.

After the race, Piastri gave a surprising reason why he knew what to do when his car was stuck in the grass.

"I was just trying to stay in the race, tried to go forwards and couldn’t, so it’s a good thing I spent some time in the off-season trying to learn how to reverse a tractor at (former Top Gear host) Jeremy Clarkson’s farm," Piastri said after the Grand Prix, per RACER's Chris Medland. "I think it came in handy. I was just trying to get myself back in the race."

Clarkson is a TV legend in the UK (and I think he's well known here in the States) and currently has a show called Clarkson's Farm, and that's where tractor lessons helped Oscar Piastri make a decision that could potentially be a big factor in the championship standings.

Think about it. All of those hours in the simulator and the biggest moment of the race for Piastri came from driving tractors with Jeremy Clarkson.

In fact, he's offering his services to the rest of the Formula 1 grid.