How Webber and Stella helped steer Piastri through his rookie F1 season

In an era of no testing and with sprint events compromising track time on race weekends it’s not easy to come into a high-profile team like McLaren, especially alongside a driver of the obvious talent of Lando Norris.

In addition Piastri had spent a year on the sidelines, having not raced since his last F2 event at the end of 2021. Private testing with an old Alpine in the first part of 2022 gave him some valuable F1 mileage, but that programme came to grinding halt after his move to McLaren was announced in the summer.

Given the tricky and uncompetitive nature of the MCL60 at the start of the 2023 season the Australian faced a huge challenge. However, the mid-season leap in performance of the car overlapped with Piastri making a personal step as he gained experience, and he was able to take full advantage. Fourth place at Silverstone was the signal of things to come, and he followed up with third in Japan and then second plus a hugely impressive pole-to-flag sprint victory in Qatar.

Every young driver needs a good team around him, and in Piastri’s case two people in particular should receive credit for helping him to progress at such a rapid rate. His arrival at McLaren coincided with Andrea Stella’s promotion to the team principal job, and the former engineer has a great understanding of drivers and how to get the best of them. And then there was Mark Webber, who with his wife Ann Neal steered Piastri through the ranks and into the McLaren seat. The former Red Bull driver drew on all his own experience to help Piastri navigate his way through a challenging rookie season.

“Overall, of course, I’m very, very, very proud, very happy,” says Webber of Piastri’s 2023 form. “I don’t think in our wildest dreams we could have expected to start with a season like that. But having hung out with the best in the world he knows there’s work to do.

“It’s never good for a racing driver not to race, with 15 months out. He did a bit of testing, but there’s no substitute for racing. He was certainly behind the eight ball a lot for the first six months, I think, even though he doesn’t want to use that as an excuse, because Oscar doesn’t make excuses.

“Obviously, at this level it’s not a bonus when you haven’t seen the lights for 15 or so months, pitstops and all that sort of stuff, safety cars, it’s just racing, which is what it’s about. So that was a bit of a shock, just how much the gap hurt. But he took it in his…