McLaren urged to back Oscar Piastri for drivers' title in stark warning from Guenther Steiner

Guenther Steiner has urged the McLaren Formula 1 team to back Oscar Piastri in the drivers' championship.

The Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay Street Circuit resulted in the Woking outfit clinching the constructors' title after Lando Norris and Piastri finished the race in third and fourth, respectively. With the back-to-back constructors' championships secured, Steiner believes that the team now needs to support one driver in the drivers' championship to not lose out to Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Heading into the final six race weekends of the year, Piastri leads Norris by 22 points. Verstappen, currently in third, sits 41 points behind Norris in second.

"I would say first of all, a fantastic job," the former Haas F1 boss said on The Red Flags Podcast. "But what they put on in Singapore, the show was not a world championship show. I mean, obviously, the car performance was good but with the drivers at some stage, either you have rules or you don't have rules. Papaya rules, which nobody knows what they are, if they even exist, but you change them around and one day is like this.

"Either you let them race or if you're getting worried to lose the world championship, you have to make the call, you have to tell one guy, and obviously that one guy is Oscar in the moment because he has got more points than Lando. I'm sorry, and it's nothing against Lando. Oscar put himself in the first I don't know two-thirds of the races in a better position.

"Now it's you go and win the world championship because if they lose the drivers' world championship now, I wouldn't be happy. And then you have got two unhappy drivers, at least if you favour one, you've got only one unhappy driver."

Throughout the season, McLaren has allowed both drivers to race with the proviso that they keep it clean and avoid clashing with each other. While this has led to some exciting battles on track, it also means that the team has not chosen a number-one driver and has stepped in to try and keep some incidents fair. Steiner argued that this has made the racing a "calculation".

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

"When Lando had the engine failure, why was that not taken into account? But Lando had a pit or two pitstop problems and all that stuff. So it's becoming a calculation. It's not racing anymore. And they took the racing element almost out of it."

Norris started the Singapore Grand Prix from fifth and managed to take third place from Piastri in a lunging move on the opening lap of the race. He bumped the rear of Verstappen's Red Bull, which in turn led him to bang wheels with his team-mate, leading Piastri to question whether McLaren was going to enforce team orders to allow him to retake the position from Norris. The Woking outfit decided not to step in after the stewards decided no further action was necessary for the incident.

When asked if he thought Norris's move was too much, Steiner explained: "No, I don't think so. It was at the start. It was hard racing. But obviously Oscar's question came because of the past decisions which are taken before."

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