{"id":201316,"date":"2025-10-09T21:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201316\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T21:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:08:09","slug":"guenther-steiner-tells-mclaren-obvious-driver-to-back-after-lando-norris-oscar-piastri-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201316\/","title":{"rendered":"Guenther Steiner tells McLaren \u2018obvious\u2019 driver to back after Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

Guenther Steiner fears McLaren now risk losing the 2025 F1 drivers\u2019 title if the team do not react to Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri\u2019s incident during the Singapore Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The papaya pals continue to top the 2025 F1 drivers\u2019 championship standings<\/a> with six Grand Prix and three F1 Sprint events to go. Yet Red Bull ace Max Verstappen<\/a> reduced his deficit to Piastri<\/a> and Norris<\/a> for the third round in succession with his P2 in last Sunday\u2019s Singapore GP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Verstappen has trimmed what were deficits of 104 and 70 points to the McLaren pilots after the Dutch Grand Prix after he also won in Monza and Baku, further aided by Piastri crashing in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/a>. The Dutchman now trails Piastri by 63 points and Norris by 41.<\/p>\n

Tensions are also building in the McLaren<\/a> garage after Norris collided with Piastri during the Singapore GP<\/a> last Sunday, as the Briton snatched third place from his teammate. Norris had to turn out to Piastri after tagging the rear of Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull<\/a> at Turn 3 on the first lap.<\/p>\n

\"LandoPhoto by Mark Thompson\/Getty ImagesGuenther Steiner claims McLaren \u2018obviously\u2019 have to back Oscar Piastri to win the F1 title<\/p>\n

Steiner<\/a> now fears McLaren may risk failing to win the 2025 F1 drivers\u2019 title with either Piastri or Norris if the Woking squad do not react to their stars\u2019 incident in the Singapore GP, which frustrated the former. Piastri could not hide his anger after feeling Norris was too aggressive.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Every error that cost Lando Norris points in his failed 2024 F1 title challenge<\/a><\/p>\n

Position Drivers’ Championship PointsPts 1 336 2 314 3 273 4 237 <\/p>\n

And the ex-Haas team principal even believes it is \u201cobvious\u201d that McLaren must back Piastri to win this year\u2019s drivers\u2019 title, having got the better of Norris through the first two-thirds of the 2025 F1 season<\/a>. Norris now leads Piastri 10-8 in their Grand Prix results head-to-head.<\/p>\n

Steiner said on The Red Flags Podcast: \u201cEither you let them race or, if you\u2019re worried [about] losing the championship, you have to make the call. You have to tell one guy and, obviously, that one guy is Piastri because he has got more points than Lando.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, and it\u2019s nothing against Lando, [but] Oscar put himself in the first two-thirds of the races in a better position. Now, you go and win the world championship because if they lose the drivers\u2019 world championship now, then you\u2019ve got two unhappy drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least if you favour one, you\u2019ve only got one unhappy driver\u2026 They had to race up to now. [But] now it\u2019s like you need to support it. We need to win the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, they didn\u2019t win the championship. This year, if they continue like this in Singapore, it\u2019s not a done deal. I still think they will win it because, at some stage, they will do what I just said, because otherwise the drivers will fall out between them.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren may struggle to back Oscar Piastri for the 2025 F1 title given Lando Norris\u2019 results<\/p>\n

Piastri has been the superior McLaren driver in qualifying this year, with his P3 on the grid in Singapore to Norris\u2019 P4 taking the Australian\u2019s lead to 10-8. He also leads the Briton 3-0 in Sprint Qualifying sessions in 2025, as well as 2-1 for their Sprint results with three more due.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: McLaren driver Oscar Piastri\u2019s life outside F1 from height to girlfriend<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

TalkingPoints<\/p>\n

Which driver should McLaren back to win the 2025 F1 title?<\/p>\n

But Piastri\u2019s race-ending crash in Azerbaijan and Norris\u2019 first lap overtake in Singapore put the latter 10-8 in front for their Grand Prix results this season. The 22-point difference in the standings between the papaya pals favouring Piastri instead reflects Norris\u2019 two retirements.<\/p>\n

Norris crashed into Piastri during the Canadian Grand Prix<\/a> and retired on the spot, which left the latter gaining 12 points in June. Also, Norris retired from the Dutch GP owing to a broken oil fitting<\/a> in August, which allowed Piastri to gain a pivotal 25 points as he won at Zandvoort.<\/p>\n

The points that Piastri gained on Norris at Zandvoort are potentially the most pivotal, as the latter gained six points back in Baku. So, McLaren may find it hard to agree with Steiner and make Piastri their priority for the F1 drivers\u2019 title when Norris has been a match on average.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Guenther Steiner fears McLaren now risk losing the 2025 F1 drivers\u2019 title if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,3552,1737,913,2333,52584,85],"class_list":["post-201316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-guenther-steiner","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-singapore-grand-prix","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}