10 January 2023 , 19:06
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Oscar Piastri has been praised for the mature and "loyal" way in which he dealt with the furore around his McLaren defection by fellow Aussie Mark Webber.
The 2021 Formula 2 champion was with the Alpine driver academy but the team had no seat in Formula 1 for him to fill right away. So he spent last year in a reserve role waiting for his chance, but it soon became clear the team was working to offer Fernando Alonso a fresh deal, meaning there would still be no place for him.
So, he signed a deal with McLaren to be their reserve in 2023 with a direct path to a race seat in the future. Of course, Alonso has now signed for Aston Martin and McLaren axed Daniel Ricciardo a year earlier than planned so, after a legal battle, Piastri has a race seat and Alpine have a lot of hurt feelings.
Team principal Otmar Szafnauer made it clear at the time he was unimpressed with the Aussie's actions and questioned his integrity. It seems some hard feelings remain, evidence by some more recent comments from the American who said Piastri was "selfish" and predicted his F1 career will "perish".
Through all that ugliness, Piastri's team manager Webber feels his client can keep his head held high. "He was, ironically, showing as much loyalty as he could do under the circumstances, because he was waiting for answers," he told Speedcafe.
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"He was the one who was the most loyal out of the whole situation. All the other shareholders and people that have been there since he's been eight years old were certainly a lot less patient.
Piastri's actions have been defended by his manager Mark Webber (Getty Images)"Oscar was keen to be as loyal as possible and it still was pretty challenging [regarding] what the future was looking like. But then, obviously, McLaren said they wanted to make a change. Oscar was available, and that's something which we had to move pretty quick on.
"They were prepared to take a huge risk on Oscar, which was tremendous. They had done that with Lando [Norris], they had done to a degree with Carlos [Sainz] and, obviously, Lewis [Hamilton] under Ron Dennis, that took a huge risk with him.
"So it was a great opportunity for Oscar to get going but, of course, he was mindful of replacing Daniel, absolutely, [but] if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. [Oscar] knows he should have been racing this year. That's the big killer here... racing drivers want to race and that was really hurting Oscar this year."