Steiner baffled by McLaren’s silence on Piastri penalty
Guenther Steiner can’t wrap his head around McLaren’s decision to accept Oscar Piastri‘s penalty at the Brazilian Grand Prix without a fight.
“Why you don’t go there and at least say something to the stewards?” Steiner questioned on the Red Flags podcast.
The former Haas boss thinks McLaren missed an opportunity, especially since Charles Leclerc himself suggested he shared some blame for the incident with Kimi Antonelli.
“Even Charles Leclerc said, ‘it wasn’t Oscar’s fault.’ If the other driver, which was taken out, says, ‘Hey, nothing to do with him. Maybe I was a little bit too optimistic,'” Steiner pointed out.
Leclerc didn’t quite admit fault directly, but his comments raised eyebrows.
“He didn’t say that because he wouldn’t admit to that one, but three wide and it’s the first lap after the safety car restart,” Steiner continued. “At some stage, with all these rules and interpretation and ten seconds instead of five and all that stuff, where does racing end?”
Steiner fears F1 is becoming too sanitized.
“We just line up and we get away. Everybody gets away like they started. Make sure that you don’t even look at anybody because you get a penalty. But the fans don’t like that.”
## Brundle thinks stewards went too far
The penalty couldn’t have come at a worse time for McLaren’s championship hopes.
After serving his 10-second penalty, Piastri dropped from second to fifth at the finish line, costing him eight valuable points in the process.
This setback has helped Lando Norris build almost a full race advantage in the title fight, with just three race weekends left on the calendar.
Martin Brundle has also weighed in on the Turn 1 incident that saw Piastri, Antonelli, and Leclerc go three-wide, with Leclerc coming off worst.
The respected commentator believes the stewards were actually too harsh on the young Australian.
