I was surprised to see this from Piastri too, particularly with Webber as his manager. Webber was renowned for only signing 1 year deals. Webber wanted to place the pressure of performing squarely on his own shoulders, plus the right to renegotiate each year, I always liked that about him. I would have expected Piastri to be similar. If his previous form in junior series plays out in F1 he could be worth some serious coin before 2026 and may have sold himself too cheaply.

RR, the "is it fair" comment is a bit weird, given that it is Piastri's free choice to decide whether or not to sign that contract extension and to judge for himself whether it was worth it.

As for your later question of what Ron Dennis might think of the pairing - why does that matter? Ron has been out of the team for nearly 7 years now - it's about as relevant as asking what Arrivabene thinks of Ferrari's line up, or Peter Sauber what he thinks of the driver line up at Sauber.

I think that is remarkable too. When LeClerc and Verstappen got their long term deals I suspected it had something to do with their fear drivers salaries would ultimately be brought under the cost cap. But, since that was never a discussion, I no longer think that.

My guess is that there are enough release clauses in the driver's contracts that you can always part ways. In Piastri's case I believe it is highly unlikely he doesn't have an exit possibility if Red Bull comes knocking.

Piastri is a rising star, and you have to hope that McLaren continues to make progress with the car.

A team to watch.

The trajectory of McLaren over the last few months is better than any other team bar RBR so why not commit now. Worst case scenario is it tides him over to the next big rule change.

Its also a message to the rest of the grid. This is what happens when you get a good F2 graduate.

Piastri, Lawson,..their success puts extra pressure on Sargent, Zhou

You forget Alonso/Button.

I agree, being locked in to a team that’s produced some awful cars, including the one at the start of this season, is not necessarily a good thing.
In reality, the best he can hope for is to be driving for the 4th best team as I expect Mercedes to recover and Ferrari seem to have made an art form out of being the second or third best team permanently.