The trait McLaren’s rising star shares with their current F1 driver

Ugo Ugochukwu shares a crucial trait with current McLaren F1 driver Oscar Piastri, according to his team.

The 17-year-old American, who is part of McLaren’s junior programme, claimed a dominant victory in the prestigious Macau Grand Prix at the weekend.

Ugochukwu secured pole position and led every lap of both the qualification race and main grand prix in a one-off cameo for the R-ace GP FR team, who were left impressed by his perfromance.

Team manager Benjamin Schidt likened Ugochukwu’s calm behaviour to that of two-time grand prix winner Piastri, who previously raced for R-ace GP when he won the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup.

“The behaviour of Ugo is always really calm. And I think it's a key factor for the drivers,” Schmidt told Autosport in Macau.

“He's looking at the data, he is understanding things, and never saying something higher or lower [in his emotions]. He's just always consistent in his behaviour.

“And I think that is what really makes the difference - putting the emotions a bit away sometimes.”

Asked if this was similar to Piastri’s approach, Schmidt replied: “Exactly, yeah. He is constant in the emotions, I would say.”

Ugochukwu won the CIK-FIA karting european championship in 2020 before taking third in British F4 in 2022, then going on to finish runner-up in Italian F4 and winning the Euro 4 championship the following year.

“I mean, already from the preparation, Ugo was quite impressive,” Schmidt added.

“We know Ugo quite well, even if he was not racing for us [this season], and we’ve tested quite a lot of times with him.

“He's definitely a good driver, quite talented. He has a huge experience as well, which makes these things a bit easier for him, even if it's never easy to win here in Macau.

“But he's definitely a good driver, and we were really happy to share this weekend with him. He just gave us this amazing win. So we cannot be grateful enough for that.”