A Q&A with the fan who made Oscar Piastri out of pizza. Plus: Can Ferrari rebound?

New York Times

20-05-2025

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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we hope you're hungry. It's never too early to eat a life-sized pizza version of a Formula One driver. (More on that in a bit.)
It's Monaco week, but we're barely going to talk about Monaco today. (But you can check out the schedule here.) Busy times! I'm Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along shortly. Let's get to it.
Max Verstappen won on Sunday in Imola — his second win of the season, bringing him within 22 points of the championship lead yada yada yada.
Let's talk about that Verstappen pass at Tamburello. That 'how did he do that?' first-lap move around the outside of Oscar Piastri, which Luke Smith broke down on Sunday.
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When Verstappen pulled off that move, seasoned F1 staff in our live blog left their seats. It struck me later, though, that some casual fans might've gone, 'That just looks like a normal pass to me.'
No judgment! I get it. But I'll emphasize: What we witnessed was the racing equivalent of a basketball player dunking from the free-throw line, or a golfer hitting a 250-yard shot that stops dead on the green.
It looks simple. It is emphatically not simple.
A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)
Here's why that pass was Something Else™️:
Most drivers would have settled for P2 at that point. Most drivers are not Max Verstappen.
Let's toss it to Madeline in the paddock, answering a question from a reader that didn't quite make our mailbag (coming on Wednesday).
There is still a chance, though it may be more difficult considering how much of the car was changed compared to the 2024 challenger and how the regulations are changing next year. Ferrari endured a similar start last season (though this year, the pace is arguably a touch worse), and it turned around its form, storming back to finish second in the constructors' championship and only 14 points off of McLaren.
But after seven race weekends, it is clear that Ferrari is still struggling with performance, particularly with extracting potential from the car on Saturdays. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc faced a recovery drive to finish in points, and even team principal Fred Vasseur mentioned their Saturday struggles after Imola. And this isn't a new topic, either. After Leclerc secured the team's first podium this year in Saudi Arabia, I wrote about the team's untapped potential, specifically where Saturday hampers Sunday.
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There is a gap between qualifying and race pace, and it may not be a simple fix with upgrades across the season. When Vasseur was asked Sunday about whether the team has to wait for parts to improve the issue, the team principal said he felt 'it's more related to the (tire) compound and to the preparation.'
He was pressed again later on in his post-race media session about whether the potential in the car is accessible or whether small changes are needed.
'It's not that we have to bring parts,' Vasseur said. 'It's that we have to understand how we can do better with what we have, because that was the same cars we are able to perform on Sunday that we need to do a better job with the car that we have on Saturday.'
please win this weekend oscar. this can't have been for nothing https://t.co/Q8ftN70PiS pic.twitter.com/ie0Zmr6VyW
— aj (@adfreebrowsing) May 18, 2025
Over the weekend, that photo above made the rounds: AJ, an Oscar Piastri fan from Australia, had posted on X that he'd make a life-sized version of Piastri out of pizza if Piastri won pole. Folks: Piastri won pole, and AJ made the Pizzastri.
I had to reach out to him and ask about this. Here's my Q&A with AJ. Bon appétit.
Let's start with the obvious: what on earth possessed you to make this promise? (Asked with deep respect and admiration, of course.)
I started making dumb promises to my (much smaller at the time) X following before each race. They were all phrased as 'incentives' for Oscar, but I'd tweet them knowing full well (and praying) he'd never see them. Oscar hadn't been on pole yet, so when China rolled around, I tweeted something like 'Oscar, if you qualify on pole for China, I'll never say anything bad about you ever again.' And, lo and behold, he did.
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After that, my circle of closer mates on X started egging me on to keep making promises because they seemed to be working. For Jeddah, I said I'd buy his newly released hat if he won. (Ed. note: He did.) I promised to buy this crazy-looking Redbubble blanket with his face printed on it, my mate found on the depths of the internet, if he won in Miami — and he did. I figured I needed to go bigger for a potential fourth win in a row when Imola rolled around this week, hence the life-sized pizza. Can you tell I ran out of ideas?
Have you made pizza before? It seems like you'd have to love cooking to commit to this.
I used to work in an Italian restaurant, so I knew a little bit, but I've never made this much. Only the occasional homemade pizza here or there. It probably didn't count as pizza by the end of making it. It was more like sparsely decorated bread. To the entire nation of Italy, I am so deeply sorry.
But why pizza? Don't get me wrong, I love pizza. But it could've been anything. Why not cake? Or a giant Oscar lasagna?
I'm going to be totally honest. I couldn't think of another thing to offer, and when in Rome (or Emilia-Romagna), why not suggest a life-sized pizza? A giant Oscar lasagna is definitely beyond my cooking skills. I think a cake might be on the cards for the future, though. Maybe I'll promise that for a Monaco win. (Ed. note: He did.)
Walk us through the Pizzastri assembly line — dough to oven to table. How long did the whole epic operation take?
I am not a maths guy. I can barely handle friends of ten. I was not whipping out a tape measure for this, so I got my 6-foot-tall brother to lie down on a big sheet of paper and traced out his outline. Turns out cheating gets you very far in life.
I made the dough and got the ingredients ready, and the rest of the genius I need to attribute to my girlfriend. I have a pretty regular-sized oven, so she divided up the body into parts that would fit in the oven and labelled them all. We traced out parts of the hands and legs and whatnot onto baking paper, and then I rolled and cut out dough to match. That part took hours. I think I started at 4 p.m., and when we were up to the decorating stage, it must have been 7 or 8 p.m.
Honestly, it really looks like Oscar Piastri. The hair! The belt! Take me inside the mind of an artist — how did you nail the accuracy using nothing but dough and toppings?
This is the best compliment I've ever gotten in my entire life — but again, this project was all the mastery of my girlfriend. I really can't take credit for anything. I did the face, but she sketched out the suit and then told me where to put the olives and everything else. She's incredibly creative and a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to this stuff, so she wanted to get the sponsors as accurate as we could while only using salami and ham and bocconcini and more olives.
What was the most stressful moment? A collapsing dough bicep? A tragic olive shortage at the knee?
We did actually run out of olives. I bought the tiniest jar, and when we loaded up the image of his race suit and remembered how much black there is, we started panicking. I spread them out pretty sparsely, but we got two or so pieces done and had to run to the shops. I probably looked pretty weird, sprinting through the aisles with a one-kilogram jar of olives under my arm.
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How did it taste? And what do you think Gordon Ramsay would say if you presented this to him in the paddock?
Gordon Ramsay would nuke me if he tasted it…. It's edible. It's food. It is not appetizing enough to want to eat a life-sized portion of it.
Did you or your friends and family finish the whole thing? Or are you preserving it for a museum? (You should preserve it for a museum.)
We really haven't eaten anything at all… I think my girlfriend ate the left hip. I had the face for lunch today. The rest is in a squillion tupperware containers in the fridge. There is absolutely no way I'm getting through all of this.
When did you know this was going viral? Did you get that 'oh no, this is blowing up' feeling? Or were you just vibing until the internet caught on?
When Verstappen's last sector came through and Oscar stayed P1, I tweeted something like 'how am I supposed to make this,' because I hadn't really thought it through. How the hell do you make a life-sized pizza of someone? Qualifying finished around 1:30 a.m. my time, so I conked out for the night.
When I woke up, the official Australian Grand Prix account was tweeting about how they couldn't wait to see it, and so had QuadLock (one of Oscar's sponsors), MDM Designs (his helmet design team), and Baz, one of the mechanics from his side of the McLaren garage. I figured I couldn't really back out after that.
I once tweeted that I'd eat my hat if the Dallas Stars lost. I did not eat my hat (because I value my internal organs). You, however, followed through on your viral bet. Was there ever a moment you considered backing out?
Absolutely not. Go big or go home. I was more worried about accidentally somehow ruining his race if I didn't make it. I guess it didn't matter in the end, because the McLaren strategy team screwed his chances all on their own. I can send them some sustenance for the debrief if they'd like. I have plenty.
How did you get into F1, and what keeps you coming back? Have you ever been to a race?
My best mates invited me over for a study session one afternoon and had a race on in the background. Needless to say, I did not get any study done. I've been hooked ever since.
I was lucky enough to go to Melbourne this year. One of my mates and I drove down from NSW. We experienced every season in one weekend, but it was an incredible experience, and I wouldn't change it for the world. So incredible to see F1 racing in person — and to watch Oscar's recovery.
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I'd love to go again, but this hobby is stupidly expensive. We'll see. I'd hate to miss the first Aussie winning on home soil, though, so I may just have to break the bank again next year.
Finally, what is it about Oscar that makes you such a fan? Do you think he'll win the title this year?
He's taking the title this year. I don't know what to promise when he does, but I'd better think of something I can do, because it's happening. This year, and many others, if McLaren can continue riding this good development wave.
I think I naturally gravitated towards him as a fellow Australian, but I reckon he's just an all-around great guy, as parasocial as that sounds, considering I don't really know him at all besides what we see on TV. He comes across really genuine and respectful, whilst still being incredibly competitive and bloodthirsty.
Mostly, I like supporting him because he's so talented. His racecraft has always been jaw-droppingly impressive. Watching his overtakes was the most fun I had last year. He's also so committed to improving and honing his skill — and when he says he'll fix his mistakes, he does. His biggest issue in the 2024 season was obviously his qualifying, but he recognised it needed to be worked on and came back over the winter break with his Q3 problem pretty much sorted.
Three poles and four wins in seven races. You can't not want to support that.
Thanks, AJ. Happy cooking 🫡
While most F1 fans will be focused on the Monaco Grand Prix, another legendary race is taking place on Sunday: the Indianapolis 500. And McLaren's Pato O'Ward (who is also the F1 team's reserve driver) is looking to turn his heartbreak into a victory celebration after narrowly missing out on the win last year. He qualified third and will start on the front row Sunday for 'The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.'
Madeline's profile on IndyCar's biggest star ran this morning. For our newsletter audience, she passed along what O'Ward wants you to take away from hearing his story:
💬 'Number one, never put a timeline on things. And I will say, simply never put a timeline on your dreams. If you want it, if you love it, keep doing it. Two, nothing will ever go to plan. And three, don't forget to enjoy it. Because I feel like there's so many moments where I look back on and it's like, wow, I could have enjoyed that a little bit more instead of stressing about it, but I just think it's part of life.
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'You try and balance it out as you can, but there'll be big waves, there'll be small ways. You just have to make sure that you're either heading towards them or heading with them. You can't get hit sideways, or you're gonna flip over.'
My favorite thing about the profile is that every other quote from him is full of charisma. (There's a reason we put 'rock star' in the headline.) Also that he's not into heavy sauces on pasta. Give it a read today.
📆 F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has capped the calendar at 24 races while introducing venue rotation and eyeing Thailand for 2028, because apparently we haven't quite maxed out the sport's air miles yet.
🏎️ And, finally, Williams and Alex Albon are quietly building the feel-good story of 2025 as F1's surprisingly competent 'best of the rest.'
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