Mark Webber lays down the gauntlet: Piastri must “find that character” as Norris turns screw
For the first time this year, Oscar Piastri looks like the one chasing shadows. São Paulo was brutal: a Sprint crash on Saturday, a 10-second penalty on Sunday, and Lando Norris hoovering up maximum points with a ruthless double victory. The swing leaves Piastri 24 points down on his McLaren teammate with precious little margin for error in the run-in.
Mark Webber isn’t sugar-coating it. The former Red Bull driver, now Piastri’s manager, says the task ahead is as much about steel as speed.
“He’s not lacking motivation,” Webber told Channel 4 in Brazil. “It’s been a tough run, but this is about character at this point. It’s his third season in F1 — he’s got to find that character and come back.”
The form book makes uncomfortable reading for the Australian camp. Since Norris’ retirement at the Dutch Grand Prix, the Brit has outscored Piastri 115–57, more than doubling his teammate’s haul over six races. Norris has strapped together wins and podiums with the swagger of a driver who’s worked out how to close Sundays; Piastri hasn’t stood on the rostrum in five.
That gap grew again at Interlagos. Piastri’s Sprint ended nose-first into the wall, a rare lapse that felt costly even before Sunday arrived. In the Grand Prix itself, he was running in Norris’ wake when news of a 10-second penalty dropped for his part in the restart melee. He’d tagged Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes, which then slid into Charles Leclerc — race over for the Ferrari. Piastri nursed his frustration over the radio and later argued the call was harsh, but in today’s air-tight midfield, 10 seconds is a bulldozer through your strategy. He salvaged fifth. Norris won at a canter.
“It looked like a first-lap incident to me,” Webber said, pointing out that restarts usually earn a fraction more leeway from the stewards. “Kimi had a bit more room on the right — he was the meat in the sandwich. But with this field, 10 seconds is just so hard to get back. Oscar lost a lot of points with that.”
Webber knows these waters. He’s lived the intensity of a title chase, the days when every call and every inch matters. His message to Piastri is blunt but familiar: your team can put the right tools around you, but only the driver can wring the weekend dry. And after a season in which Piastri led the standings earlier on, Norris’ momentum has now flipped the storyline.
The dynamic at McLaren is fascinating precisely because it’s so transparent. There’s no cloak-and-dagger politics; just two drivers in equal machinery, hustling for the same prize. Norris has found that sweet spot lately where he fronts the weekend from Friday and closes it like a hammer. Piastri’s peaks are still there — the raw pace hasn’t vanished — but they’ve been sprinkled with scrapes and near-misses at exactly the wrong time.
Piastri isn’t the sulk-and-sulk-again type. He processes quickly, he’s brisk on accountability, and he’s got a racing brain that usually keeps him cleaner than most in traffic. The frustration in São Paulo came because the penalty felt out of step with the scenario. But there’s no rewinding what the stewards decide. And in a title fight, bad calls — your own, the pit wall’s, or the officials’ — can’t become anchors.
Which is exactly why Webber’s nudge lands with a thud. Find the character. It’s not about making the car faster on a Tuesday or unspooling a new spec from Woking. It’s about the messy work of weekend craft: banking laps in a gusty quali, staying out of other people’s accidents, taking the two points instead of throwing five away, and then waiting for your surge.
If there’s a silver lining for Piastri, it’s that the gap to Norris is big enough to be clear, but not so big it’s fatal. He’s not fighting ghosts — he’s fighting a teammate whose form, right now, is white-hot. And that’s a stressful place to be, but it’s also the absolute best education you can buy in Formula 1.
McLaren won’t change a thing publicly. No orders, no narratives, just two drivers free to sort it between them. Norris has earned that recent sheen of inevitability; Piastri has to scuff it. He doesn’t need fireworks, he needs clean weekends, and perhaps a touch of luck that’s been avoiding the #81 car.
Webber’s final word felt less like a critique and more like a challenge he expects his driver to meet. Third year. Title pressure. Find that character. It’s a simple brief — and the hardest one there is.
