The World Championship battle in Formula 1 is coming to a head; the collision between McLaren rivals Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in Singapore was probably a foretaste of what was to come in the heated final phase of the season. RTL expert Günther Steiner now advises the world champion team to take a drastic step.
McLaren’s legendary Papaya Rules have become a real constant topic of discussion in Formula 1. They say: As long as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris drive fairly, they can drive against each other without intervention from the command post.
What is fair, what is unfair, what is a (justified) intervention by the team – this can be debated. However, Günther Steiner advises the racing team to mothball its orange rules for the rest of the season.
“I would say that they should support Oscar to win the championship,” Steiner replied on the “Red Flags Podcast” when asked what he would advise McLaren boss Zak Brown for the last six Grand Prix weekends of the year.
Steiner cites Max Verstappen as the reason for his number 1 advice. The defending champion is 63 points behind Piastri and 41 points behind Norris in the Drivers’ World Championship. But: mathematically speaking, the World Cup train hasn’t yet left for the Dutchman.
If Verstappen were to catch up, in the worst case scenario McLaren would have “two unhappy drivers, while if you prefer one, you only have one unhappy driver,” explained the RTL expert.
“Either you let them drive or, if you’re afraid of losing the world championship, you have to make a decision, you have to commit to a driver and at the moment that would of course be Oscar because he has more points than Lando.”
RTL expert Steiner criticizes McLaren
Steiner made it clear that his plea for Piastri was “nothing against Lando.” Piastri is 22 points ahead of his stable rival in the table, who recently nibbled away three points behind in Singapore thanks to his uncompromising attack after the start.
Steiner himself didn’t think the Briton’s action was too harsh. What the ex-Haas team boss doesn’t like is that McLaren doesn’t apply its Papaya Rules uniformly.
“Either there are rules or there are no rules,” said Steiner. The South Tyrolean referred to the race in Monza, where the Australian had let Norris pass after his botched stop, when Piastri asked to swap places on the radio after the Singapore collision.
“It’s no longer racing. They’ve almost completely removed the racing element,” criticized Steiner, who thought it was good that the team didn’t intervene in Singapore. However, this is not in line with previous decisions.