Guenther Steiner blasts McLaren for “rolling over” on Piastri penalty as title fight tightens
Oscar Piastri walked out of Interlagos with a 10-second penalty and a fifth place that felt like a swing door slamming shut on his title momentum. The part that rankled Guenther Steiner wasn’t the call itself. It was McLaren’s reaction to it.
Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, the former Haas boss handed out his trademark weekend gongs: Lando Norris got “rockstar” for winning in São Paulo. McLaren, though? “Wanker,” said Steiner, for not going harder at the stewards after Piastri was judged “wholly” to blame for the Lap 6 melee that ended Charles Leclerc’s race.
If you somehow missed the chaos: at the restart they fanned three-wide into Turn 1 — Piastri on the inside, Kimi Antonelli in the middle, Leclerc hanging it around the outside for Ferrari. Piastri hopped the inside kerb, snatched a brake and skated into Antonelli, who was pitched into Leclerc. The Ferrari’s front-left broke and the tyre went trundling down the hill, all ending before the race had properly begun for Leclerc.
The stewards didn’t hesitate. Ten seconds to Piastri. Harsh? McLaren said yes, but took it on the chin. And that, in Steiner world, is the sin.
“Why don’t you go there and at least say something?” he bristled. “Even Charles said it wasn’t Oscar’s fault. First lap, three-wide — at some point, where does racing end? Fans don’t want this.” Then the kicker: “You need to fight for your team. Even if you lose, you try.”
Leclerc himself wasn’t baying for blood. “Collateral damage,” he called it, suggesting Antonelli shared some blame with Piastri. Andrea Stella largely agreed. The McLaren team principal labelled the verdict “on the harsh side,” pointing to Piastri’s line through the corner and the geometry of three cars trying to claim the same bit of real estate. But then he parked it. Respect the stewards. Move on.
That is, broadly, the modern way — keep your powder dry, don’t poke the bear, and avoid dragging a penalty into a saga that becomes a scoreboard. Steiner, unsurprisingly, isn’t buying it. He’s old-school fight club. If your driver’s title hopes are being shaved by the decimal point, you don’t accept a judgment you think is wrong without a proper scrap, especially when the “victim” — in this case Leclerc — is already out front saying it wasn’t entirely on your guy.
Would it have changed the outcome? Nearly certainly not. But this isn’t about flipping a penalty. It’s about shaping the next one, about making your presence felt when everything is on a knife edge. And in 2025, everything is.
Piastri’s fifth was a salvage operation that cost him dearly in the big picture. With three Grands Prix and a Sprint still to go, he trails team-mate Norris by 24 points at the top of the standings. That’s enough room for a plot twist, but not enough to waste afternoons under the stewards’ microscope. McLaren knows it. You could hear it in Stella’s tone: measured, but with a flicker of frustration that the incident was judged one-way when the context suggested shades of grey.
This is also about what happens on the other side of the garage. Norris is on a roll. He didn’t need any of this drama to gild his weekend; he executed, he won, he extended. For him, Brazil was confirmation. For Piastri, it was a warning: the margins are small, and the leash is shorter in November.
The irony? Interlagos was classic Interlagos precisely because drivers dared. Three-wide into the Senna S at a restart is the kind of thing you sell the sport on. It’s the line Steiner’s poking at — how much do you penalise the very thing you claim to promote? There’s no clean answer, but there’s room to argue the toss, especially when the grid’s most forensic young racer is the one wearing the blame.
McLaren, publicly at least, chose not to escalate. Quiet diplomacy might be the smarter play long-term, particularly with a title fight split across their own garage. But this season has a pulse. And sometimes, as Steiner will tell anyone within earshot, you have to show it.
