22/08/2023
NEWS STORY
Oscar Piastri says he is happy to have veteran Mark Webber as his manager, convinced his experience is paying dividends.
Aside from claims that the Woking team has already favoured Lando Norris strategically on a couple of occasions this season, Zak Brown's latest comments concerning the Briton will do little to calm the fears of those who believe Oscar Piastri is being given the clear 'number two' treatment.
However, in his corner the Australian has Mark Webber, a man who knows all about favouritism and bias, not least from those years as Sebastian Vettel's (multi-21) 'wing man'.
Webber took over the role of Piastri's manager around three years ago, and was heavily involved in last year's tug-of-war between McLaren and Alpine for the youngster's services.
With McLaren seemingly on the ascendant once again, Piastri is happy to have Webber in his corner.
"He's good," the Australian told Virgin Radio. "The first few years we worked together he did a lot behind the scenes for me, he still does a lot behind the scenes for me now.
"Obviously he's got a wealth of F1 experience, racing experience," he continued, "and now that I'm in F1 myself, he's got heaps of ideas and questions.
"At this stage of my career, there's stuff I've not even thought of that he's asking me, so he's very, very good behind the scenes, and good at helping me on the track when he can. I'm definitely happy he's in my corner."
As previously reported, Zak Brown is over the moon that Norris finally has a car he can challenge with, but Piastri insists that this goes for him also.
"For me, being my first year, it's been a whirlwind, a busy first half of the season, so the summer break was a nice little time to reflect," he said. "We're doing what we love, what we wanted to do since we were a little kid.
"At the same time we spend pretty much half of our year at a race track, and you've got to make sure you're having fun, otherwise you're spending six months of every year wondering what you're doing.
"I'm loving it," he concluded, "especially as we're now fighting further at the front as well. It's a bit more fun when there are some trophies waiting at the end when you get it right.
"We've still a few things we want to work on but we have a much better baseline for where we want to go in the future now. Hopefully we can continue to go forward, fight for some more trophies and have a good second half of the year."