With the 2025 Formula 1 season entering its final stretch, former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has once again called on McLaren to prioritise championship leader Oscar Piastri over teammate Lando Norris.
Ahead of next weekend’s US Grand Prix in Austin, Piastri sits 22 points ahead of Norris with just six races remaining.
While Verstappen trails by 63 points, his recent form – including wins in Monza and Baku – has positioned the Dutchman as a potential spoiler. The four-time world champion also outpaced both McLarens in Singapore, demonstrating that the RB21 can perform across a variety of circuits.
Steiner, speaking on the recent Red Flags Podcast, believes that it’s time for team papaya to hit the brakes on its “let them race” policy.
"I would say first of all, a fantastic job," he kicked off, tipping his cap to McLaren's machine.
“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.”
©McLaren
The trigger? A controversial first-lap skirmish at Turn 3, where Norris, starting P5, muscled past pole-sitter Piastri with a wheel-banging lunge that had stewards scribbling but ultimately waving through.
Piastri, fuming over the radio about the "unfair" contact needed to make the move stick, begged for a team swap-back.
McLaren? Crickets. Norris held third, Piastri fourth, and the intra-team tension simmered hotter than Singapore's humidity.
Scrutiny is now dogging the Woking squad's driver management ever since, with fans and pundits alike questioning if their free-for-all approach is costing points in a title scrap this tight.
Steiner's Bold Call: Back the Aussie or Bust
Steiner, never one to shy from a hot take, laid it out plain:
“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,” he added.
©McLaren
“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.”
“It’s not racing anymore”
Steiner believes that McLaren’s so-called “papaya rules” have muddied the racing and added unnecessary complexity to the drivers’ battle. Diving into the Singapore dust-up, he blasted:
“When Lando had the engine failure [at Zandvoort], 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,” the Italian contended.
Read also: McLaren’s secret to success? Brown points to two key assets“It’s not racing anymore. And they took the racing element almost out of it. 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.”
Steiner’s logic, however, is somewhat puzzling. He criticises McLaren for their “involvement” in race incidents, implying that the team’s interference is spoiling the racing.
Yet, in Singapore, there was precisely no intervention by the team, with Norris keeping his gains – and rightly so – without a peep.
However, there is perhaps a case to be made that it’s McLaren’s non-involvement that’s fueling the fire – proving that Steiner's call for a clear favorite might be the only way to restore order before Verstappen turns the team’s papaya party into a Red Bull rout.
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