McLaren receive unwanted Steiner award after ‘not a world championship show’

McLaren may have wrapped up the Constructors’ Championship in Singapore, but for Guenther Steiner, the Woking team was the “w***er” of the weekend as its papaya rules eclipsed the triumph.

Finishing third and fourth at the Marina Bay circuit, McLaren’s 27 points handed it an unassailable lead as it secured the Constructors’ title with six races remaining.

McLaren told: Either you have rules or you don’t have rules

But it was the team’s antics on lap 1, not lap 62, that dominated the headlines.

Fighting for track position on the opening lap, Norris “barged” into Piastri at Turn 3 with the latter fuming when McLaren refused to intervene despite proclamations that the team races with its papaya rules at the forefront.

And that, said Piastri earlier in the year, is “literally one rule: don’t crash into each other.”

But in that moment when he thought the papaya rules would protect him, McLaren earned Steiner’s “w***er for the Singapore Grand Prix” award for muddling its own principle regulation.

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“It can only be McLaren,” he told the Red Flags podcast.

“I mean, the strange thing is, as much as they won the world championship, we call them w***ers. But it is a little bit conflicting there.

“I would say first of all, a fantastic job, a fantastic car.

“But what they put on in Singapore, the show, was not a world championship show. I mean, obviously, the car performance was good, the car 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.”

Put to him that the politics surrounding McLaren right now have “tainted” the title fight, Steiner replied: “Absolutely, you are right with that.

“Why when Lando had the engine failure, why was that not taken account? Yeah, Lando had a two pit stop 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.”

Interestingly Steiner, who has often pinned his colours to Piastri’s mast in this year’s title race, does not believe Norris crossed the line in Singapore.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “It was at the start. You know, it was hard racing.

“Obviously, Oscar’s question came because of the past decisions which are taken before. That’s what I say. I mean to unravel all this, what was said and what was done now, it’s a story in itself.

“You will never get that right, because you can use any argument.

“Fortunately for them, I still think they will win the world championship, also the drivers world championship, because obviously the manufacturers they won, and congratulations to that one, but it’s like it makes every time you see them it’s a story now about them.”

Steiner reckons this could be just the start of McLaren-on-McLaren contact.

In the ‘Gas or Brake’ segment of the podcast, Steiner was asked if McLaren teammates would crash again before the end of the season.

“I would say it’s gas, and then they will take the decision to put team rules in,” he said. “Gas.”

But he stopped short of calling it a certainty, “It’s not a certain if they put rules in that one has to win. That’s why I’m not so convinced.”

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