F1 journalist claims Mark Webber friendship broke down over Oscar Piastri move

Leading F1 journalist Peter Windsor claims his friendship with former F1 star Mark Webber broke down over Oscar Piastri's decision to join McLaren.

Windsor has been consistent in his opinion that Piastri should have joined Alpine for the 2023 season instead of moving to the papaya squad.

The former F1 team manager believes the 26-year-old Australian would have been a superstar at Alpine, blowing away team-mate Esteban Ocon and setting up a potential move to the likes of Ferrari or Mercedes.

But he says that point of view, which he has repeatedly aired on his YouTube podcasts and streams, resulted in a loss of contact with Piastri's manager Webber.

Windsor claims he had been good friends with Webber and that the pair 'hung out together', but adds there is now no contact between them.

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'He blanked me after the whole Piastri thing'

When asked about Monday's announced Piastri-Webber split during a live stream this week, he said: "There was a time when I loved Mark dearly and we got on extremely well and we were very close and I like to think that I played a little bit of a role in helping him get to where he is, or where he was in Formula 1 - right from the Formula 3 days.

"But he blanked me after the whole Piastri thing and I said I thought it was an odd move [to McLaren]. If he had got that race drive at Alpine it would have been better for him to stay there for a year and then look at what was gonna be out there from the big boys like Ferrari or Mercedes, or McLaren. And he stopped talking to me after that."

Windsor spoke about the potential reasons for Webber and Piastri's split, and ruled out one possible factor.

"If Oscar was thinking that Webber's role was not to tell him how to drive but to make sure he always had a backstop drive if he wanted to leave McLaren, then I think it's being very naive. How would Webber have been able to do that? Stop Ferrari signing Lewis [Hamilton] or stop Mercedes signing Kimi Antonelli? It's a bit naive to expect that and I can't imagine Oscar did think that - he's not that naive is he."

Windsor hopes Webber friendship can be rekindled

Despite the apparent breakdown of their friendship, Windsor remains hopeful that their relationship can be rekindled again one day.

"I just hope Mark and I become friends again, because he's a great bloke, we often used to talk about cricket a lot. Indeed We went to quite a lot of the cricket together We hung out a lot in his early days, lovely guy.

"But he just went completely off me when I deigned to suggest that Oscar should have stayed at Alpine."

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