Headline: Steiner says Piastri should eye the exit if McLaren title bid collapses — but it’s way too early to pack his bags
Guenther Steiner has never been one for half-measures, and his read on Oscar Piastri’s wobbling title campaign is as blunt as you’d expect: if the Australian doesn’t convert this fight into a championship — or at least come back swinging in 2026 — he should think about leaving McLaren when his deal runs out.
Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, the former Haas boss hit the “gas” pedal on two provocative prompts: that Piastri ought to move on at the end of his contract, and that Max Verstappen will beat him to second in the standings. “Change sometimes is good,” Steiner said, arguing Piastri is strong enough to adapt elsewhere and shouldn’t be afraid to reset if this season leaves a mark. He even floated the idea that Piastri could be “destroyed mentally” by how the run-in has unfolded.
It’s a harsh reading of a complicated picture — but the scoreboard has been unkind to Piastri lately. After the summer, the McLaren driver looked set to control the championship. His win at Zandvoort, on a day Lando Norris retired late, pushed him 34 points clear at the top. Since then, though, the tide’s turned. With three rounds left, it’s Norris who leads the World Championship by 24 points, while Piastri hasn’t stood on a podium in five races.
Verstappen, meanwhile, is doing Verstappen things. Post-break, he’s barely put a wheel wrong, banking a podium at every round and stacking wins in Italy, Azerbaijan and the United States. Brazil dented his title hopes when Norris gapped him, but Steiner still backed the Dutchman to pry P2 away from Piastri before Abu Dhabi. “He rolled his sleeves up after a crappy qualifying and finished on the podium,” Steiner said of Interlagos. “If Oscar is now destroyed mentally, Max will be ahead of him, absolutely.”
That sounds like the old Guenther: pragmatic, provocatively so. But does a bruising late-season stretch really mean Piastri should start plotting his McLaren escape? Not yet.
For one, this is Piastri’s third season in Formula 1 against Norris’ seventh. He’s not exactly green anymore, but there’s a difference between winning everything in the junior ladder and handling the white heat of an F1 title fight. You only learn that lesson while taking the punches — and he’s taking them now. He’s also still on a long-term McLaren deal that runs through 2028, and nothing in his demeanour suggests disenchantment with the team. If anything, the opposite: he and McLaren have built a calm, detail-obsessed rhythm that’s underpinned their resurgence.
And it’s not as if the results tell the full story. Interlagos could easily have yielded a P2 without that 10-second penalty. On weekends when the car’s knife-edge balance has tilted away from him by a degree or two, Piastri’s looked a touch conservative compared to Norris’ elbows-out approach — understandable, perhaps, for a driver leading a title race for the first time. But there’s no sign he’s lost speed. The margins at the front are viciously small this season; a scrappy Saturday or a safety car at the wrong moment, and you’re watching Norris, Verstappen, Russell, Antonelli or Leclerc walk off with your points.
Steiner’s broader point about change has merit in the abstract. Drivers often benefit from a reset when a cycle turns stale. But that’s not the vibe at McLaren. The car’s been a weapon since mid-2024, the development path is coherent, and the team has nurtured Piastri rather than thrown him to the wolves. If he misses out this year, the most rational play is to regroup over the winter and attack 2026. He doesn’t need a new logo on the polo shirt; he needs a clean run and a couple of big Sundays to restore that early-season ruthlessness.
The other part of Steiner’s call — Verstappen finishing ahead of Piastri — is less incendiary, mostly because it’s eminently possible. Verstappen’s been relentless since the break, and he tends to collect points like a taxman. If Piastri doesn’t snap this mini-slump now, Max will be there to pounce. But that’s a micro-plot inside a bigger equation. The real question is whether Piastri can take a chunk out of Norris before the flag drops in Abu Dhabi. One win in Las Vegas, one lights-to-flag statement in the desert, and the narrative flips back in an instant.
It’s also worth remembering how quickly reputations recalibrate in this sport. Nico Rosberg wore two years of bruises from Lewis Hamilton before breaking him in 2016. Charles Leclerc’s low ebbs at Ferrari looked existential until Ferrari gave him a car that didn’t self-destruct. Momentum is fragile; talent isn’t. Piastri’s got plenty of the latter.
So yes, Steiner’s take cuts through the noise and hits a few truths: Verstappen will punish any weakness, and title runs can scar. But calling time on McLaren after a rough six weeks? That feels premature. The smarter bet is on Piastri resetting the needle before the season’s out — and if not, using the winter to come back meaner in 2026.
If he really is “destroyed mentally,” we’ll see it. More likely, he’s just in the part of the arc every future champion has to navigate: the bit where winning gets hard.
