McLaren handed emphatic backing after miserable Oscar Piastri start

Mark Webber has "full faith" that McLaren will hand Oscar Piastri a car he can again fight with for the F1 drivers' title and "go one better this season" than last year.

For a considerable period of time last season, it appeared that Piastri would become champion. After victory in the Dutch Grand Prix, his seventh of the year, the Australian led the standings by 34 points to team-mate Lando Norris, with Max Verstappen 104 adrift.

Red Bull driver Verstappen went on to mount a sensational comeback that saw him finish two points shy of a fifth consecutive title at the end of a championship battle that remarkably went Norris' way following a dramatic collapse from Piastri, who only managed a further three podiums in the final nine races.

It was an agonising miss from Piastri, and for his manager, Webber, who endured his own heartbreak in 2010 when he led the title race with three races remaining, only to finish third behind Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

"My missed chairmanship was much later in my career, whereas his [Piastri's] is very early in his career, which is a big feather in his own cap," said Webber, speaking exclusively to RacingNews365.

"It's incredible what he's been able to do in such a short period of time, which, of course, we're immensely proud of.

"When you aim incredibly high, and you just miss, it's something you have to learn from quickly and rebound. It's how you get back up, and that's what he's done, what he's doing. We've seen that.

"Of course, it was a winter of reflection, clearly. That has to happen after such a long, long campaign."

Piastri would have come into this season with high hopes of at least being in the thick of another championship scrap, only to start the year by failing to complete a single racing lap in the opening two grands prix.

In the curtain-raiser on home soil in Australia, Piastri crashed on a reconnaissance lap to the grid. A week later, in China, technical issues with this year's new power unit led to both him and Norris being unable to take to the grid.

Piastri at least bounced back by finishing second in the following race in Japan, and third on Sunday in Miami to move up to sixth in the driver's standings, albeit 57 points adrift at this early stage of leader Kimi Antonelli.

Webber, though, is confident that Piastri will mount a charge on the back of McLaren's development over the year of its MCL60.

"Obviously, two non-finishes weren't a nice way to start" said Webber. "But then, Suzuka was a phenomenal performance from him.

"I've got full faith in the team that McLaren is going to get the car back up and fight for the world title again, so he can go one better."