Guenther Steiner has made a U-turn on Max Verstappen's title chances, telling The Red Flags Podcast that the Red Bull star is still very much in the running for the 2025 drivers' championship. Joking, he added that McLaren could help him do so, too.
“I was completely no a few races ago, I’m saying yes,” Steiner said when asked if the Dutchman is still in with a chance of the title. “And his best ally to win this championship is McLaren.” He then added with a grin: “The papaya rules are for Max.”
This set off a round of jokes about Verstappen's orange branding and McLaren's papaya, with the hosts of the podcast teasing that the reigning champion's 'orange army' is from the Woking team.
Pressed on Oscar Piastri's recent downturn in performance after a chaotic Mexico Grand Prix weekend, the former Haas team principal didn't sugar-coat his opinion of the Australian driver and how the team has, according to him, failed to support him.
“I mean it wasn’t good enough to be world champion, no? He’s struggling now and I don’t know what exactly is happening but one of the things I could conclude out of it is that, Oscar being... he doesn’t get support from the team to win the championship.
"You lose a little bit your mojo. You have doubts and you don’t perform - as you called the dice man - you don’t perform anymore without, you know...
"I’m here to win, because at the beginning of the season he had no pressure because he was number two in the team and - unofficially, obviously not officially - but again Lando is there a lot longer, he’s a lot older, he’s got a lot more experience.
"Oscar comes up, wins races, puts himself in the position.. I mean everything goes right. Then I think with all these papaya rules I don’t remember them all when they, you know, ‘let him pass’, ‘let him go’, ‘Oh, I go.’ I mean, ‘let Max go,’ all that stuff.
"In the end, I think he lost a little bit of confidence and therefore qualifying, you’re out there on your own. It’s just difficult. Didn’t have a good lap. You start in Mexico where he started. You haven’t got a chance, you know?”
Despite this, Steiner warned against drawing too many conclusions from Mexico's pecking order. With the high altitude having an effect on each car, he argued it would be premature to believe that the Red Bull cars are no longer faster than the McLarens.
“I think going back to the performance of McLaren and Red Bull in Mexico - Mexico is such a special race course with the altitude," he continued. "So we shouldn't jump to a conclusion that the Red Bull is not good anymore.
"I wouldn't say yes or no. I just would say I don't know because it's one of the things Mexico you can have a very good car and you don't know where it is coming from because, it's like, you don't develop a specific car for Mexico because you put a lot of more cooling in the car and you lose obviously downforce and some people lose more and some less but it's not something you do.
"You always try not to lose downforce by cooling the car more but sometimes it goes better sometimes worse. So I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the Red Bull is not as good as it was in Austin.”
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