{"id":356441,"date":"2025-12-18T16:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356441\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T16:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:52:09","slug":"ex-mclaren-driver-claims-oscar-piastri-in-talks-with-rival-f1-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356441\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-McLaren driver claims Oscar Piastri in talks with rival F1 sides"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former McLaren <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a> driver Juan Pablo Montoya has claimed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/piastri\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oscar Piastri<\/a> is likely to be engaging in talks with rival teams with the 2025 season now over.<\/p>\n<p>The Australian endured a torrid end to his season, having led the Drivers\u2019 Championship by 34 points into the final third of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>But a dip in form, coupled with rejuvenated performances from both team-mate Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, the former eventually snatching the title.<\/p>\n<p>Piastri was at the centre of some contentious moments within the McLaren team as the season wore on, beginning with the position switch furore at Monza.<\/p>\n<p>And then just a matter of weeks later at Singapore, a furious Piastri was shoved wide at the start of the race by Norris, but both incidents were quick put to bed by the team.<\/p>\n<p>This has led Montoya, who drove for the team between 2005 and 2006, to believe that Piastri will be seeking alternative employment.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Oscar-Piastri-Mark-Webber-1024x576.webp.webp\" alt=\"Oscar Piastri and manager Mark Webber could be looking for alternative teams, according to ex-McLaren star Juan Pablo Montoya\" class=\"wp-image-233505\"  \/>Oscar Piastri and manager Mark Webber could be looking for alternative teams, according to ex-McLaren star Juan Pablo Montoya<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guarantee you that Oscar Piastri and\u00a0Mark Webber [his manager]\u00a0are already talking to another\u00a0F1\u00a0team,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think Mark Webber was satisfied with Oscar\u2019s development at McLaren. Mark isn\u2019t very happy with McLaren. But the question is whether Oscar is very unhappy with McLaren,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The more prickly moments within the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mclaren.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Woking-based squad<\/a> have led many to speculate whether McLaren has been covertly favouring Norris, a product of its junior programme.<\/p>\n<p>Webber was, of course, at the centre of similar theories when he was team-mates with Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull between 2009 and 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The Colombian believes that the lessons he learned from that time might be something that will translate into his own dealings with Piastri.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think they need to be careful and make sure that Webber\u2019s scars from his time as a race car driver have nothing to do with Oscar\u2019s career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, McLaren CEO Zak Brown has stated that Piastri will win \u201cmultiple\u201d titles with the team in the future.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2025\/12\/17\/mclaren-boss-delivers-bold-oscar-piastri-f1-title-prediction\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McLaren boss delivers bold Oscar Piastri F1 title prediction<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former McLaren Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has claimed that Oscar Piastri is likely to be engaging&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,913,195171,806,805,803,804,2333,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-356441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-mclaren","12":"tag-montoya","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-oscar-piastri","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}