Webber dismisses speculation about Piastri's future

Oscar Piastri's manager Mark Webber has dismissed as fiction lingering reports suggesting McLaren's Australian driver ​might swap places with Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Four-times ‌world champion Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase has already signed a deal to join McLaren when his contract allows, by ​2028 at the latest, and the Dutch ​driver has been unhappy with Red Bull's ⁠performance.

Verstappen is known to have a break clause ​in his contract and continues to be linked in ​media speculation to McLaren, despite them saying they are happy with the current pairing of Piastri and world champion Lando ​Norris.

"I've got a contract in place, multiple reassurances ​that the team are very happy with me and I'm ‌very ⁠happy with the team," Piastri said at last weekend's British Grand Prix.

Verstappen crashed out of that race and said his car's rear wing was "super-dangerous", with ​the incident further ​fuelling speculation ⁠about a rift within the team.

Webber told Racer.com that Piastri was contracted to ​McLaren "for the foreseeable future".

"Talk of him ​agitating ⁠to leave is nonsense," said the former F1 driver.

"There has been a lot of fiction written about him ⁠and ​other teams... McLaren have repeatedly ​said they want him for the long term and Oscar is ​focused on that."