Mark Webber receives Jos Verstappen advice amid ‘strange’ Oscar Piastri slump
Is it time for Mark Webber to make some internal noise at McLaren?
Jos Verstappen believes that now is the time for Mark Webber, the manager of Oscar Piastri, to start making some noise internally at McLaren.
Piastri’s Drivers’ Championship push has gone off the rails in recent rounds, a shock U-turn which Jos, father of reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen, finds “strange”. Jos also believes that now is the time for Piastri to “fight back” at McLaren.
Jos Verstappen tells Mark Webber: ‘Would bang my first on the table’
Flick back to August’s Dutch Grand Prix, and it looked as though we had witnessed a critical moment in the F1 2025 title fight. Lando Norris ground to a halt in the closing stages, leaving McLaren teammate Piastri to race on to victory, and put himself 34 points clear of Norris at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.
At that point, it looked like a typically unflappable Piastri was on his way to another world championship, this time, the grand prize that is the F1 crown. However, skip back to present time, and Piastri goes into the Brazilian Grand Prix a point behind Norris, the new championship leader.
Recent rounds have been a story of uncharacteristic errors and inconsistent pace for Piastri, who watched Norris claim a dominant win last time out in Mexico to return to the top of the pile. Piastri was restricted to fifth.
Jos Verstappen knows all about being in the camp of a championship-winning driver, his son Max having done it four times in a row. He could yet make that five, having closed to within 36 points of the P1 spot held by Norris.
Piastri is managed by Mark Webber, a nine-time grand prix winner with Red Bull. Jos says now is the time for Webber to start turning the screw within McLaren.
“I find what’s happening at McLaren quite strange,” said Jos in a De Telegraaf interview. “Piastri hasn’t suddenly forgotten how to drive, has he?
“If I were him, or his manager, I would bang my fist on the table internally. Because now everyone is wondering whether he can handle the pressure. And that’s not good for your own name, Piastri’s in this case.”
Piastri’s recent collapse has proven a fresh stimulus for unfounded claims of McLaren favouritism towards Norris.
Jos was keen to avoid fanning those flames, but with Piastri and Norris having played the team game impeccably throughout the title battle, Jos advises Piastri to change tactic.
“It may automatically seem that way, but I have no insight into that,” said Jos on the McLaren favouring Norris conspiracy theory.
“However, if I were Piastri, I would fight back now. Everyone assumed he would become champion, and that image has now changed very quickly.”
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris head-to-head in F1 2025
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, speaking ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, made it crystal clear just how impartial the team is. He’d rather they lose the Drivers’ title to Max than favour either Norris or Piastri to get the job done.
“I’d shake his hand and say ‘job well done’,” Brown said of Verstappen, should he win the title, while speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast.
“I want to make sure if we don’t win, he beats us, we don’t beat ourselves. That’s important.
“And we’re well aware of 2007, two drivers [Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso] tie on points, one [Kimi Raikkonen] gets in the front. But, we’ve got two drivers who want to win the world championship. We’re playing offence, we’re not playing defence.
“I’d rather go ‘we did the best we can, and our drivers tied in points, and the other guy beat us by one’ than the alternative, which is telling one of our drivers right now when they’re one point away from each other: ‘I know you have a dream to win the world championship, but we flipped a coin, and you don’t get to do it this year.’ Forget it. That’s not how we go racing.
“The best way to win the Constructors’ is to finish first and second in the championship, and the best way to win the Drivers’ Championship is to have two drivers going for the Drivers’ Championship.
“In the event 2007 happens again? I’d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favourites. We won’t do it. We’re racers. We’re going racing.”
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