Oscar Piastri admitted his mentor and manager Mark Webber has bestowed “invaluable advice” for a tense drivers’ championship battle with a Formula 1 teammate.
Webber was locked in a similar fight with Sebastian Vettel, and now highlights crucial lessons his mentee should take into the final races.
“He obviously has been in a similar kind of fight, I guess, in his career,” Piastri said on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
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Oscar Piastri regularly picks the brain of Mark Webber. Getty
“Obviously for him, it unfortunately didn’t go the way he wanted.
“But the lessons from that and the things that he thought went well, the things he wishes he did differently, those are things that can be passed on to me before I have to experience it myself, which is invaluable at times, I would say.
“So he’s definitely a help as well.
“And I think just having the general mindset and the kind of appreciation of what it’s like, that’s the important part.”
Webber definitely understands the heightened pressure.
He was locked in an intense battle with his Red Bull teammate during Vettel’s dominant run of championships from 2010-2013.
Mark Webber experienced a title fight against teammate Sebastian Vettel. Getty
Many argue there are similarities in Piastri’s treatment at McLaren to Webber’s at Red Bull, but all involved have always denied McLaren’s bias.
Piastri is currently set to easily surpass his manager’s total of nine race wins, Piastri has already matched that number in only his third year of racing.
“I’ve got to try and make it happen [passing Webber], but it’s been a good little inside joke through this year,” he added.
“He’s safe on the poles for now and podiums, but yeah, wins is obviously neck and neck at the moment.
“So it’s been a good little bit of fun between us this year.”
‘Worst weekend of my life’
Piastri admitted he had the “worse weekend” he has ever had in racing at this year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix but added that it was useful in some ways, teaching him what not to do.
“In Baku…Friday was tough, things weren’t working, I was overdriving,” he said.
“I wasn’t very happy with how I was driving and ultimately probably trying to make up for that a little bit on Saturday.
“I think there was kind of some things in the lead-up, let’s say, that were maybe not the most helpful and then things that happened on the weekend.”
“There’s no beating around the bush, that was the worst weekend I’ve ever had in racing, but probably the most useful in some ways,” he said.
“So, when you can start to look at things like that, normally that helps you out quite a lot.
“[If] you look at some of the names that have had some pretty shocking weekends, or almost unbelievable weekends or races or moments in their career where things have gone wrong; it happens to anyone.
“There’s not one person in racing that doesn’t have some kind of disastrous story of how a weekend went wrong for them.
“Looking at it from that perspective does help a lot, but you still need to learn the things you need to learn from weekends like that.”
Lessons on the key ingredients for success
Piastri admitted that everyone in the F1 paddock is ready to “pounce” at the slightest margin of error from the championship leader.
But now, as Norris leads the championship, Piastri will need to be “good at everything” and hope for some suffering from the other side of the garage to retake the championship.
“Probably the biggest thing I learned through those championships was that there’s not one key ingredient that is going to win you a championship,” he said.
“You need a bit of everything and especially in Formula 1.
“In the junior categories, people are a lot younger, a lot more inexperienced. You’ve got people that are generally in their first or second year in that championship, so there’s kind of some more variability.
Oscar Piastri won an F2 championship during COVID under the guidance of Mark Webber. Formula 1 via Getty Images
“In F1, there’s a lot more experience.
“Obviously, it’s kind of a culmination of all the champions from their respective junior careers converging in Formula 1, so everyone’s pretty good, believe it or not.
“So I think you just have to be on top of your game all the time because there’s so many people that are ready to pounce if you’re not.”
Piastri is only on his third year in Formula 1.
In Formula 1, the relationship between driver and engineer is paramount. Â Getty
The drivers he’s fighting with have a combined experience on the grid of 18 years – seven for Lando Norris and 11 for Max Verstappen.
“But I think a lot of the lessons of consistency and, again, you need to be consistent, but you need to be consistently quick,” he said.
“You can’t have one without the other.
“You can’t be quick and then making mistakes either, so essentially, you need to be good at everything. That’s the main thing I’ve learned.”
The intensity of the season finale
The 2025 season ends on three consecutive races in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
For Piastri, he’ll need to deal with the external pressures of jetlag and ever-changing time zones, as well as adapting to the circuits in a finite time period.
“I think it’s pretty amazing how little sleep you can get away with sometimes when the adrenaline’s pumping, but it’s a tough end to the season,” Piastri admitted.
“That was one of the first things I learned in my rookie season in F1…now I know what to expect obviously and I’m much more in tune with where I need my energy to be and how to spend it, how not to spend it.
Max Verstappen celebrates after winning the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. NurPhoto via Getty Images
“But that was one of the biggest learning points from my first season was just how brutal the travelling is at the end of the year.
“Every race counts.”
Dr. Sammy Diasinos, former F1 aerodynamicist, admitted that the pressure of triple-header weekends can make or break a driver.
“I think when you’re in this kind of position, yes, there’s pressure involved, it’s tough, it’s uncomfortable at times, but I would much rather be a bit uncomfortable at times and fighting for a world championship than trying to scrape a few points every now and again,” he said.
“In my short time in F1, I’ve kind of experienced all of that a little bit and where I am now and where the team is now is a much nicer place to be…more ‘this is what you go racing for’, fighting for championships, especially in F1.
“This is kind of what you live for and obviously it doesn’t come easily and there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that.
“But you’re fighting for something worth fighting for, so it’s going to be there.”
The Grill’d curse
OK, so this idea has slightly gotten out of hand.
Email inboxes around the country on Wednesday pinged with a Grill’d reaction to the Piastri curse.
They took accountability for the superstitious voodoo they may have placed on the Australian driver after their Monza OP81 burger promotion.
“We’d like to apologise. To those who believe in the “curse”,” the Grill’d statement read.
Grill’d leant into the viral Oscar Piastri curse. Â Grill’d
“We didn’t mean to create a burger so delicious it could change the course of F1 history.
“Sure, we can take a joke about a curse, but we’ll never bet against a guy like Oscar Piastri.
“At the end of the day, Oscar’s our homegrown Aussie hero and we’ll always be in his corner. Today, tomorrow, and forever – we’ve got your back, Oscar.”
They also announced McLaren-style orange merch to match their “sorry, not sorry” motto and billboard in central Melbourne.
Oscar meets cricket
Off the racing track, Piastri will be in Vegas as the Ashes come to town in Perth on November 21.
Who will Piastri be cheering for?
“Obviously Australia,” he laughed on F1’s podcast.
Piastri has been seen multiple times at the cricket with the Australian side, even bringing them for a tour through McLaren’s headquarters in Woking.
The viral photo of cricket star Ricky Ponting and a teeny-tiny Piastri that was featured on the back page of his local cricket rule book always finds its way onto social media around this time.
A young Oscar Piastri looks up at then Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting. Â Instagram
“But I think it’s going to be a pretty good series, actually,” he added.
“I think England’s batting looks strong. Australia’s bowling looks strong.
“So it’s going to be a good contest there. Our top order batting is… I feel like we normally have someone that hits a big score, but it’s not quite as reliable as it once was five or six years ago.
“So I think it’ll be a good contest, but given that it’s in Australia, it’ll be Australia still.
“And when we’re in Vegas, there’s some crazy time difference to Perth as well.
“But if it’s on [in Vegas], if it’s around, I don’t know if they’ll play the Ashes in the US.
“It’s certainly not going to be in the casinos, I can tell you that much.”