In the high-octane world of Formula 1, where billion-dollar budgets collide with human ambition, a world championship fight is often settled not just by horsepower or pit stop times, but by loyalty and the sheer, unyielding will to win. For a team, this means going to war for their driver. Yet, in the searing aftermath of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, McLaren, a team with one foot firmly planted in a genuine title fight, found itself dragged into the harsh spotlight for a stunning act of omission: silence.
What started as a seemingly routine, if contested, 10-second penalty levied against rising star Oscar Piastri for a clash with Kimi Antonelli at Interlagos, has now ballooned into a full-blown crisis of faith. This isn’t just about lost points; it’s about a core fracture in the psychological foundation of a championship contender, and the team’s perceived “corporate caution” that, according to former F1 insider Gunther Steiner, amounts to nothing less than surrender.
Steiner, whose decades inside the cutthroat Red Bull system and subsequent tenure leading Haas give his words undeniable weight, didn’t hold back. His outrage was not directed at the collision itself, which remains a subject of heated paddock debate, but at McLaren’s response—or lack thereof. When Piastri needed his team to stand up and challenge the stewards, to signal an unambiguous “We’ve got you,” McLaren stayed quiet. That silence, Steiner argues, was a crippling blow delivered at the worst possible moment.
The Psychological Cost of Caution
In the brutal calculus of a title fight, every decision, every micro-aggression, and every act of defiance matters. McLaren’s current scenario is paradoxical: they possess a title-caliber car, a race-winning driver in Lando Norris, and a superstar-in-waiting in Piastri. However, they are battling on two fronts—against their rivals and, increasingly, against a creeping uncertainty within their own garage.
The facts on the table are stark. Following the Sao Paulo incident, Lando Norris, Piastri’s teammate, flipped a 34-point deficit into a 24-point lead with just three rounds remaining. Momentum, that invisible yet powerful currency in F1, has decisively swung toward the British driver. Piastri’s penalty, which many pundits including Sky commentators, Julian Palmer, and even the collateral damage, Charles Leclerc, found questionable, came at a critical juncture. The paddock was split, suggesting the call was anything but black and white.
Yet, McLaren treated it as a settled matter. In Steiner’s view, that willingness to simply nod along and accept the FIA’s judgment without even the act of presenting a counter-argument sends a disastrous message. It tells the FIA that McLaren is risk-averse. Crucially, it tells Oscar Piastri that when the battle gets messy, he is, to a degree, on his own.
“A team fighting for a world championship cannot watch their driver take a penalty that swings the title picture and then simply not along,” Steiner lamented. He emphasized that even a failed appeal would have fulfilled the core duty of telling Piastri, “We’ve got you.” Instead, their silence was interpreted as surrender, a psychological lapse that lingers far longer than any strategic slip or missed podium. It is the kind of wound that breaks the championship-winning unity a team desperately needs.
The Ledger of Doubt: From Monza to Brazil
The tension felt in Brazil did not appear overnight. It was the second domino in a worrying pattern that began months earlier at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. Piastri, who was demonstrably quicker throughout that weekend, was instructed to hand a position over to Norris. While the young Australian followed the order without complaint—a testament to his composure—these moments form part of an emotional ledger that a driver carries into every subsequent race.
Since that initial wobble, Piastri’s title campaign has visibly drifted. He is suffering through a five-race drought without a podium. The effortless early-season confidence has been replaced by a subtle shift in the garage’s internal dynamic. Norris has been flawless—back-to-back wins, clean weekends, and a relentless rhythm.
While no one alleges malicious intent from the team, the subtle inertia inside the garage is unavoidable. Engineers, on instinct, start trusting the feedback of the driver with the hot hand. Setup direction subtly flows toward the one delivering victories. This gravitational pull of success is natural, but when paired with an external, contested penalty that the team refuses to challenge, the pieces align into a pattern of doubt for the analytical driver.
Piastri is renowned for his composure and his analytical approach. People close to him suggest he is not driven by anger, but by analysis. And for a mind that connects patterns, the sequence of Monza, the title deficit, Norris’s form, and the undefended penalty in Brazil creates a profound, almost tectonic shift. When a driver starts to feel like the secondary project, he instinctively begins to protect himself and evaluate his long-term options. Steiner wasn’t stirring drama for drama’s sake; he was exposing a psychological truth in elite sport.
The Fading Bite: Modern F1’s Paradox
Steiner’s critique exposes a larger tension across modern Formula 1. Teams increasingly preach transparency, professionalism, and corporate composure. Yet, the sport’s most legendary eras were fueled by raw competitive fire, instinct, and confrontation. McLaren, a team once defined by Senna’s dominance and Ron Dennis’s disciplined, yet intensely competitive, approach, now feels like a corporate entity polishing itself so meticulously that the necessary bite is fading.
Top-tier racing teams do not avoid conflict; they control it and weaponize it. They push back against adversity. By passively accepting the penalty, McLaren demonstrated a risk-averse nature that runs counter to the aggressive mentality required to clinch a world title. This is not about the legal certainty of winning an appeal; it is about the internal messaging: standing shoulder-to-shoulder with your driver in the trenches.
For Oscar Piastri, the sting is acutely personal. His entire reputation is built on composure and supreme natural talent. But every young driver relies on the absolute surety that their team will step into the fire with them. Brazil was the first, and most significant, weekend where Piastri looked up and saw a gaping void where that support should have been. The question now isn’t about pace—Piastri has it in abundance. It’s about clarity and belief.
The remaining races of the season have transformed from a comeback attempt into a deeply personal test of faith. Piastri knows how small a championship window can be; he has the talent and the speed. But he desperately needs to know if McLaren will fight beside him. Will this title run be remembered as the moment the team rediscovered its aggressive edge, or the moment its rising superstar realized he might need a team that truly mirrors his own fierce ambition?
The irony is that a single win in the final rounds could flip the public narrative overnight. But the profound questions raised by McLaren’s silent response in Brazil—the questions about loyalty, risk tolerance, and the psychological contract between driver and team—will not vanish with a trophy. They will follow Oscar Piastri into the winter break, into the 2026 season, and potentially into a long-term future that might no longer be painted in papaya orange. Steiner’s criticism serves as a brutal warning: loyalty, especially in F1, must be earned, and McLaren’s deafening silence may have just cost them their biggest asset.
