- Oscar Piastri, 25, says he misses the stress of a championship fight while he sits seventh in the standings, 94 points behind Lando Norris, per Motorsport.com.
- The McLaren driver says his 2026 car has been hard to drive from the start, and the team now chases Red Bull in the constructors’ championship.
- The remarks follow Piastri’s split from manager Mark Webber, who started working with him in 2019 and pushed his move to McLaren.
The Driver Who Wants the Pressure Back
“But that stress that you have in a championship fight is the feeling you want because it means you’re fighting for something that is what your goal is. I am missing that feeling this year for sure, and it adds a bit of extra intensity and things like that.”
Piastri, the 25 year old Australian who drives for McLaren, said it when RacingNews365 asked whether a season without a title fight had been a blow. Piastri is in the middle of a rough year, and he answered with a wish for the heat to return.
He did not pretend the year had been all bad. “Yes and no,” he said. “I want to be in a championship fight every year if I can be, but also, it’s definitely a bit more relaxed this year. Obviously, we’re not wanting to be in this position, but there’s not quite the same stress.”
Then he gave the other side of it. “But yeah, it’s not all… there are some things that are a little bit easier when you’re not in a championship.”
A Quiet Year After a Title Chase
The contrast with 2025 explains why the line lands. Piastri led the drivers’ standings for a lot of last year. A late challenge from Max Verstappen pushed him down, and he finished third behind his McLaren teammate Norris, who took the title, and Verstappen, who finished second.
This year has gone differently. With three races left, Piastri sits seventh, 94 points behind Norris. He has not won a race, and his two podiums, second in Japan and third in Miami, came early in the season. The slide has been building for a while, and Piastri earlier admitted he had no answers as his teammate pulled clear.
The year has also had its sharper edges, including Norris crashing into him.
Brazil gave him a small lift. Piastri recovered to sixth at Interlagos after a Q2 exit, while Norris won on Sunday in a car McLaren had upgraded with a new front wing designed to make it more predictable. McLaren has struggled all year to match the pace it showed in the last two seasons, now that the sport’s new rules are in force.
A Car That Never Became Easy
Piastri has been clear about where the year started to go wrong. The new rules changed the cars, and he says the early weeks went into the engines.
“It was clear at the beginning of the season that they were going to be quite different, but mainly from the power unit side of things,” he said.
“The actual cars themselves are smaller, they have less downforce, so of course they’re always going to be different, but I think the first few races we were really occupied with the power unit and how to get the most out of that.”
Then the work shifted to the chassis. “After the first few races, and especially after they tweaked some of the rules, it became a bit more normal, and that’s when we really dug deep into what the car itself is like.”
What the team found was not simple. “It wasn’t that easy to drive, and it’s still not been easy to drive, even now. So, pretty early on, we identified that it was going to be challenging.”
Knowing the problem and fixing it were different jobs. “It took us a while to understand exactly what needed to change, and then trying to actually change it is tough.”
He closed with patience. “But we’re making progress with it slowly, and that’s all we can keep trying to do. So yeah, that’s been the biggest thing. We recognised pretty early on that the car had some things that were tricky to manage.”
For a driver who spent 2025 near the top of the standings, a car that fights back every weekend is its own kind of stress. It is just not the kind that comes with a trophy in sight.
Seven Years With Webber, Ended on a Monday
The title fight remark landed in the same week as a bigger personal story. On the Monday after the Brazilian Grand Prix, Piastri and Webber announced in a joint statement that Webber and Ann Neal would no longer manage him. Piastri’s split from Mark Webber closed a partnership that began in 2019, when Webber, a nine time grand prix winner and a former Red Bull driver, started working with the young Australian.
Webber’s decisions shaped the career Piastri has now. Piastri won back to back titles in Formula 3 and Formula 2 in 2020 and 2021, but his backer Alpine failed to get him onto the grid in 2022. Alpine was keen to place him in a Williams seat on loan for a couple of seasons. Webber did not accept it. He pushed instead for a switch to McLaren for 2023 in place of Daniel Ricciardo, a move that stunned Alpine and the paddock. Piastri finished on the podium as a rookie, won his first races in 2024 and narrowly missed the world championship in 2025.
The first hint of change came in February, when Piastri spoke in Bahrain at pre-season testing. “There wasn’t anything specific, we just made a decision for things to look a bit different,” he said.
“Mark is still very much involved and I’ve been in contact with him a lot over the last few weeks. He just won’t be trackside as much anymore. So that’s really the extent of it. There was nothing specific that triggered it.”
Piastri described the 2026 shift as “just taking a bit of a step back, that’s all”. The Webber and Neal role had moved “behind the scenes”. Nine months on, the relationship has ended.
Both sides called it a joint decision. “Following our reduced trackside involvement this season, we have collectively agreed that now is an appropriate time to bring our management agreement to a close,” Webber said.
“This will allow Oscar to build on his achievements under a new management structure, and for us to embark on our new ventures.”
“We wish Oscar all the very best for a long and successful career.”
Piastri’s own statement was warm. “I’d like to thank Mark and Ann for all their support and advice over the years. Their guidance has been invaluable, particularly in navigating the beginning of my F1 career. I wish them all the best going forward.”
What Webber Gave a 21 Year Old Rookie
When Piastri made his F1 debut at 21, Webber was the voice outside the team who had already lived it. Piastri said as much in his first season. “Mark’s advice was to not underestimate the challenge of F1 and how big of a step up it is, not just from the cars but from everything: the amount of people you need to interact with, the media commitments, and the sponsor commitments. It’s all much higher than before. I think having him reminding me of that before the season started was nice, not to be shocked when I arrived. That’s probably been the biggest thing.”
The help was practical too. “But he’s very helpful with small driving tips here and there as well, and sometimes thinking of questions for the engineers that don’t even come to my head at the moment.”
And Webber’s instincts had not dulled. “He’s still very sharp. He thinks like a racing driver still and is always trying to get the best out of me.”
The relationship was not free of strain last season. Webber was unhappy with how McLaren handled the title fight between Piastri and Norris, and with the reasoning offered for Piastri’s dip in form over the final quarter of the season, which cost him the championship. Whether any serious tension existed between McLaren and Piastri’s camp, beyond the usual clashes between a race team and the people looking after one driver, has never been directly addressed by either party.
Webber carried his own Red Bull experience into the role and wanted to prevent Piastri from ever being labeled a number two driver. Christian Horner, Red Bull’s former team principal, described that mentality in a recent interview. “I think probably the difficulty with Mark was, he motivated himself through adversity. He always drove better when he felt that the world was against him,” Horner said. “He could see this talent emerging in Sebastian [Vettel], and he was using everything in his locker to try and destabilise that, or to cause any tension in a way that would then fall back in his favour. I think as a team we were learning how to handle these dynamics.”
What Is Left Before the Season Ends
Piastri’s position at McLaren is settled. His contract runs until the end of 2028. Verstappen has extended at Red Bull, and Red Bull has Isack Hadjar, Arvid Lindblad and perhaps Nikola Tsolov in the longer term to fill its second seat. Piastri called it flattering that his name was linked with Red Bull in the summer, but a door there looks shut for the coming years. His future sits with McLaren and the people inside it.
That leaves the present. McLaren is fourth in the constructors’ championship, 17 points behind Red Bull, and Piastri says closing that gap is the priority. “Just keep learning and ultimately try and beat Red Bull in the constructors’ championship. That’s the big thing,” he said. “It’s not going to be an easy task for sure, but I think it’s possible. I think the car took a step forward this weekend, so hopefully that keeps going.”
Las Vegas comes next, with three races left in the season. McLaren has its eye on Red Bull, Piastri has a car that took a step forward in Brazil, and he has a new management structure to build. The stress he misses is at least within reach of a smaller fight: a drive up the constructors’ table that would send him into the winter with something to show for a hard year.
