Piastri squashes talk of future Red Bull move

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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri has put a hard stop to rumours that he sees his future as being a Red Bull driver.

The Australian has long been a person of interest to Red Bull, and this week Doctor Helmut Marko suggested that Piastri's manager Mark Webber had expressed interest in having a conversation of a driver move.

Piastri has a contract with McLaren until the end of 2026, but what happens after that it open to discussion and negotiation. But Piastri has suggested that he's not planning to move away from Woking.

"Definitely not," he told the media in Mexico his week. "I'm very happy where I am. I'm under contract for the next two years after this, I'm certainly not looking to go elsewhere.

Piastri has claimed two Grand Prix wins this season in Hungary and Azerbaijan and is currently in fourth place ihe drivers championship in his sophomore season in F1.

He said he was "not massively" surprised by Red Bull's interest in securing his services in the future, and said that he saw but treated Markos comments as a sign of respect.

Read also: Marko drops bombshell on potential Piastri move to Red Bull

"It wouldn't be a weekend in F1 without some comments from Helmut"," he said during the pre-race weekend media appearances in Mexico, adding: "It's a nice compliment I would say.

"I'm very happy with where I am and they have quite a big pool of drivers they can choose from," he continued.

Red Bull had been hoping to use any cracks between Piastri and Lando Norris, with the Aussie being asked to support the Briton despite still being mathematically in contention for the title himself.

Max Verstappen recently sought to widen the McLaren cracks by commenting that in Piastri's situation he would not have agreed to back up his team-mate at the expense of his own title bid.

"Max is a very straightforward guy, says what he thinks, we all know that," Piastri responded. "I don't see it as being a number one, number two.

"Baku was a perfect example, really, of not giving up everything this season purely for the benefit of Lando and trying to help the team as best as I can," he explained.

"It's not simply number one number two. We still have the same car. We still have the same opportunities," he said. "I appreciate [Max's] support, but it's not really how I feel."

Norris' own title chances took a blow last weekend in Austin when he finished behind Verstappen in both the sprint race and the Grand Prix, leaving him 576 points behind the Red Bull drivers with five race weekends remaining.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.