Guenther Steiner’s blunt advice for Piastri: stay put, beat Norris, win big
Oscar Piastri left Singapore with a bent front wing, a bruised ego, and a fresh round of chatter about his future. By Monday morning, the paddock rumor mill was back at full noise: whispers that the Australian could be eyeing Ferrari for 2027, frustration at McLaren’s handling of intra-team flashpoints, and the usual social-media sleuthing over who’s the “favorite” in papaya.
Guenther Steiner isn’t having any of it.
Speaking on the Red Flags Podcast, the former Haas boss dismissed the idea of Piastri jumping ship as, frankly, nonsense. In Steiner’s view, Piastri’s best shot at everything he wants — wins, leverage, and yes, the big one — is already underneath him. “Why leave?” was the gist. He even went a step further, predicting this season could end with Piastri as world champion.
That’s a bold call, but it captures the current reality for McLaren and its 24-year-old star. The Woking team has been relentlessly efficient through 2025, and while Singapore descended into chaos on Lap 1 — with Lando Norris lunging into a gap, tapping Max Verstappen and catching Piastri in the crossfire — McLaren’s trajectory remains upward. Piastri’s radio messages, bristling that Norris’s move wasn’t exactly “team-like” and that race control from the pit wall felt a touch too hands-off, only poured more fuel on a story that didn’t need help burning.
Then came the Swiss tabloid line: Piastri, Ferrari, 2027. Tempting headline. But the practicalities are murkier. Ferrari is already a crowded house. For 2025 the Scuderia has Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in red, a pairing that needs no dressing up. And the real reset isn’t next season anyway — it’s 2026, when an entirely new ruleset will tear up the form book from power units to aero. Leaving a quick car before a regulation cliff is a gamble. Leaving a quick car that looks well-organized for that cliff is something else.
McLaren, by all accounts, has already moved significant resource into its 2026 project. Rivals, Red Bull included, have kept trimming their 2025 cars in recent rounds. That doesn’t prove anything for next year — it never does — but it tells you where the intent is. And if you’re Piastri, intent matters. You want a team whose next car is built around your strengths and your feedback, not one that might be figuring out where you fit after you’ve walked in the door.
Steiner also batted away the social-media cottage industry that says McLaren biases Norris. It’s the oldest trope in the book when teammates run close: if both cars are fast and one driver is a touch more decisive on Sundays, conspiracy follows. Steiner’s take was more grounded — McLaren might not be gifting Piastri a hand up, but they’re not kneecapping him either. In his words, the fight is there, and if Oscar beats Lando, the status writes itself. Titles settle arguments; they always have.
Contractually, there’s no urgency to force anything. Piastri signed a multi-year extension with McLaren in March, while Norris’s own multi-year deal — penned in 2024 — stretches beyond 2025. The exact end dates are locked away in Woking, as usual, but there’s enough runway there for stability and leverage. If Piastri keeps producing, he’ll have both.
None of this is to dismiss the emotional spike of Singapore. Drivers have long memories when it comes to first-lap etiquette, and McLaren’s so-called “papaya rules” — the internal expectation for clean racing between teammates — will have been pored over again behind closed doors. But the short version is simple: if the car keeps giving him shots at wins and the team keeps tilting forward for 2026, Piastri doesn’t need a different badge to become the guy. He just needs to keep beating the one on the other side of the garage.
And that’s really the crux of Steiner’s bluntness. In a season with a title in reach and a reset looming, changing colors would be a lottery ticket. Sticking with McLaren looks like smart money.
Ferrari will always be Ferrari — alluring, iconic, a perennial gravitational force. In 2025, with Hamilton and Leclerc at the helm, it’s a powerhouse too. But the surest way for Piastri to make himself unpoachable by 2027 is to make himself undeniable before then. Do that and the rest tends to take care of itself.
