Amid the merry-go-round swirl of F1 driver transfer rumours, all prompted by Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari deal, Australia's top gun Oscar Piastri has declared that he is perfectly happy where he is.
As McLaren unveiled their 2024 car amid a fairly low-key launch in England this week, the equally understated Piastri, who had such an impressive rookie season with the team, offered a quietly upbeat assessment of what his follow-up campaign might hold.
The F1 landscape has been churned up by news of seven-time champion Hamilton's mega-move from Mercedes to Ferrari at the end of the season, leading to all kinds of conjecture about potential future driver moves, with Fernando Alonso tipped as the Silver Arrows' next target.
Inevitably, given his excellence in his first season, the name of the 22-year-old Melburnian Piastri has also cropped up, with speculation over whether he has an escape clause in his contract that would enable him to move.
But the level-headed Piastri, who finished ninth in the championships in his rookie year, sounded wholly content with his lot at McLaren alongside Lando Norris as he declared: "I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'm very, very happy at Team McLaren."
Talking to Sky Sport, Piastri was positive when asked if he now felt McLaren, who in September extended his contract until the end of 2026, were in a position to fulfil his ambitions as driver after a slow start in 2023.
"I definitely think so," said Piastri. "I know that I'm at a team that, firstly, wants me. They've secured me for long-term and that was something they they didn't need to do so early if they didn't want to.
"So for me, that's a massive show of faith and I'm very, very happy with where I am. Obviously, I'm going to be alongside Lando for the years to come as well, which is cool and it's nice to have sort of a consistent benchmark."
"Now 12 months on from my debut, I feel much more at home with the team and in a much more comfortable position. I know everyone's name now which is nice. Just those little things will hopefully make the season a little bit easier from the start.
"You always try to beat everybody out there. Your teammate is always the first measure because you're in the same car and, of course I want to try and beat Lando but it's still important for us to work together and try and get McLaren well and truly to the front.
"We'd rather be fighting each other for first and second then for further down in the top 10. So we're going to work together just as well as we had done in the last 12 months and see what we can do with this new car."
