comments he made on the Red Flags Podcast towards the end of last season<\/a>, when Piastri\u2019s championship hopes were fading following a difficult run of results.<\/p>\nAt the time, Steiner suggested a change of team could be beneficial if the Australian was unable to regain his form.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just needs to regroup over the winter and come back stronger than before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtherwise, if he doesn\u2019t come back stronger, I think the best for him is that he changes teams then. But he could come back because I still rate him highly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almost a year later, Piastri is still searching for a return to the form that saw him lead the championship for much of 2025.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old has managed just two podium finishes this season and sits seventh in the drivers\u2019 standings on 144 points.<\/p>\n
His last victory came at the Dutch Grand Prix in August 2025, while his most recent podium was in Miami in May.<\/p>\n
The Australian has now gone 14 consecutive races without a podium, his longest such streak since the first 15 races of his F1 career in 2023.<\/p>\n
Piastri has struggled to extract consistent performance from McLaren\u2019s MCL40, although he indicated ahead of last weekend\u2019s United States Grand Prix that he was gradually making progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m slowly getting there, both improving this year and also identifying what I need more of or less of to go quicker from the car,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n
Despite those difficulties, Steiner believes Piastri\u2019s situation is far from disastrous, particularly given the level of competition he faces from Norris.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be too worried about that. He\u2019s still having good results. He\u2019s not losing completely,\u201d Steiner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he\u2019s racing against Lando, who is at the moment one of the best out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steiner also pointed to the limited opportunities available at Formula 1\u2019s leading teams as another reason for Piastri to remain at McLaren.<\/p>\n
Rather than seeking an immediate change, he believes the Australian should concentrate on rediscovering his best form and overcoming Norris before considering his longer-term future.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously there are not many openings as well in big teams, in one of the big four,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think in the moment the best thing for him is to stay put in McLaren. Try to do the best job, try to beat Lando, and then he has got other opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that Piastri\u2019s performances have fallen short of last year\u2019s standards, Steiner insisted there was no reason for the Australian to make a hasty decision about his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all get good years. We all get bad years. And he is not having a bad year. He\u2019s having an average year. Call it like this. But it\u2019s not bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still young, so the biggest thing is not to panic now. There\u2019s no need for panic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Formula 1 heads to Mexico this weekend for the Mexico City Grand Prix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guenther Steiner believes Oscar Piastri should stay at McLaren as he searches for a return to form. Image:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,3552,913,806,805,803,804,2333,7499,85],"class_list":["post-944484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-guenther-steiner","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-slot4","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944484","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=944484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Steiner](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/XPB_1445215_HiRes.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGuenther Steiner believes Oscar Piastri should stay at McLaren as he searches for a return to form. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n