Follow us on Google Discover McLaren driver Oscar Piastri is in pole position to become the first Australian since 1980 to win the Formula 1 world championship.
Jack Brabham won the drivers’ championship three times in 1959, 1960 and 1966, before Alan Jones last achieved the feat in 1980.
Since then, only three Australians have won a Formula 1 race: Mark Webber (nine), Daniel Ricciardo (eight) and Oscar Piastri (nine).
Ricciardo has ruled out a Formula 1 comeback, meaning that the hopes of Australia rest on Piastri’s shoulders.
But Piastri can rely on having Webber in his corner as he’s been managing his career for several years.
Position Drivers’ Championship PointsPts 1 336 2 314 3 273 4 237 5 173 6 127 7 88 8 70 9 39 10 37
The McLaren driver has a 22-point lead in the championship with six race weekends remaining, but his advantage over Lando Norris and Max Verstappen is slowly shrinking.
Last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix saw tensions increase within the McLaren camp despite Andrea Stella’s team securing the constructors’ championship.
Journalist Lawrence Barretto has now shared the role Webber is playing behind the scenes in Piastri’s camp this year, and how that could benefit the 24-year-old as the title race becomes even more tense.
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Barretto was speaking on the F1 Nation Podcast about how Piastri compartmentalised his issues at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix going into Singapore and said: “I think he was able to do that in Baku brilliantly.
“If we go back to earlier this weekend, which feels like ages ago, actually, he pulled it back.
“He was very quick on Friday. Lando was making a few mistakes. Suddenly, it looked like Oscar had put it all behind him.
“I think this is probably just going to be another example of him being able to compartmentalise it and move on again, because, look, he’s still leading the championship.
“He’s just seen that Lando’s just chipped out a couple of points out of him. And he’s got Mark Webber in the corner, who I think has been an incredible factor in this in the way that he’s been able to counsel him through the junior formulae, into Formula 1, to react in the right way.
“And, yeah, I think we saw a bit of needle on the radio when he was kind of going to the team relentlessly, almost, at the start, like, are you going to do anything about it? Are you going to do anything about it? But that’s normal, right?”
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How close did Mark Webber get to winning a Formula 1 championship as Oscar Piastri closes in?
Webber never won a drivers’ championship, finishing third to Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
Vettel nearly doubled his points tally in 2013, and had a significant advantage in 2011, but the year the German won his first title in 2010 was far closer.
The Australian missed out by 14 points, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso splitting the two Red Bull drivers, and a collision at the South Korean Grand Prix between Webber and Nico Rosberg snatched away his best chance of winning the championship as Vettel suffered an engine failure that day.
Webber would have learnt a lot from that moment and his years as Vettel’s teammate to help Piastri come out on top in his fight with Norris and Verstappen.
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Speaking to Crash about missing out in 2010, Webber said: “I was in with a chance of winning the championship until the last race, so I must have been doing something right, and in the end, there are a lot of positives.
“I feel I have driven very well for most of the season, and that’s the most important thing to me.
“This weekend [in Abu Dhabi] didn’t turn out, and it’s a shame, but it’s a good time to reflect in the next few weeks and look back at the highs and the lows, but that’s the way the sport is sometimes.
“There have been quite a few emotions over the last couple of weeks; when you come so close to the top and just miss out, it’s a shame, but I tried my absolute hardest, and I have great guys around me.”
Webber will hope that Piastri doesn’t go through the same experience when the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix comes around this year, with the Australian able to win the title before the final race as things stand.