Oscar Piastri has lost his ‘attack dog’ at McLaren after Mark Webber stepped back

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Oscar Piastri’s management reshuffle at McLaren this year has been the subject of intrigue, with Mark Webber taking on a different role.

It emerged over the winter that Webber would manage Piastri’s commercial affairs from afar rather than being by his side at the race track. The McLaren driver brought back his old F2 engineer Pedro Matos to assist him with racing matters.

One journalist has claimed that Webber wanted Piastri to leave McLaren at the end of last season, a campaign dominated by discussion over the ‘papaya rules’.

Does Oscar Piastri still need Mark Webber at McLaren?

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Mark Webber fought some of Oscar Piastri’s battles

It has also been claimed that McLaren put pressure on Piastri to make the managerial changes before the new season.

But Piastri says Webber’s reduced role is natural now that he’s become more experienced in F1. He leant heavily on the former Red Bull driver while he was learning about the sport.

Speaking on the Nailing the Apex podcast, reporter Tim Hauraney explained that Webber played an ‘attack dog’ role for Piastri when it came to having difficult conversations with the team.

“Mark was kind of like the attack dog,” he said. “Mark was there for certain specific conversations that needed to happen that maybe Oscar couldn’t fight, just on his own.”

Was Mark Webber ‘fighting with shadows’ at McLaren?

Hauraney’s colleague Edd Straw offered further insight, suggesting that Webber at times fought too hard for Piastri.

During his own career, Webber was subject to some controversial treatment at Red Bull when he was teammates with Sebastian Vettel, and that may have coloured his approach at McLaren.

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Straw says Webber has a tendency to ‘fight with shadows’, which naturally created some ‘friction’ at McLaren, but he highly doubts that the team ‘banned’ him.

“He’s always had that fighting spirit, that underdog spirit as well,” said Straw. “I think that serves you well in a lot of situations, but it does also sometimes create a need to find an enemy to fight, even when there isn’t one there.

“There were times at Red Bull when we saw both versions of that, when he was legitimately feeling that Vettel was being favoured. There were also times when he was fighting a little bit with shadows.

“I think Webber was playing that role a bit with Piastri last year, but it certainly created a little bit of friction at times.

“But also, Piastri’s more experienced, he’s gone through a title fight as well and Webber has got other things to do in his life as well. He’s invested a lot of time in Piastri.

“I doubt it’s quite as explicit as they just banned Mark Webber from being there at McLaren because he was causing problems. It won’t have been that.”

Piastri ultimately missed out on last year’s championship by 13 points, having seen a 34-point advantage slip away. Now approaching 75 race starts, he may feel he has grown stronger as a result of that experience.