Guenther Steiner touts what ‘hardly anyone’ says about Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri due to McLaren

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Guenther Steiner feels “hardly anyone” is talking about why McLaren are to blame for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri fading into virtual obscurity during the 2026 F1 season.

The Briton and the Australian were the talk of the paddock throughout last year whilst they fought Red Bull rival Max Verstappen for the F1 drivers’ championship. Norris even won the title last term by only two points over Verstappen to close out the ground-effect rules cycle.

But Norris and Piastri have seldom set the headlines at the start of the 2026 regulations era, except for the talk about the latter being replaced. Piastri has a release clause in his contract for McLaren until 2028 that might become available, as he is currently sixth in the standings.

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Guenther Steiner believes McLaren’s car is holding Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri back

Piastri has to be outside the top five in the drivers’ standings at the summer break following the Belgian Grand Prix and the Hungarian Grand Prix over the next two weekends. His clause may open the door to an exit, although Mark Webber is adamant the claims that Verstappen could replace Piastri at McLaren are “nonsense” and that they want the 25-year-old to stay.

READ MORE: How to watch the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix, plus the weather forecast for Spa

Piastri’s future has been the main talking point with the Melbourne native so far this season. And former Haas team principal Steiner believes the reason why so few people are speaking about Piastri and Norris is because McLaren are not giving them a fast enough car this term.

“That’s normal,” Steiner told BILD. “If you don’t win, you’re less in the spotlight. Piastri and Norris aren’t having a bad season, but their car is currently only good enough for fourth or fifth place. Hardly anyone talks about that.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella recently admitted that the papaya squad are “two or three months” behind their rival teams with the development of their 2026 car, the MCL40.

Stella concedes that the Woking outfit took a path from the start of the MCL40’s design that has proven to be wrong, leaving them having to correct fundamental aspects that are not an instant job. The next stage of McLaren’s bid to return to competitiveness will be seen at Spa.

McLaren are due to debut an upgraded rear wing at this weekend’s Belgian GP, but it is not expected to be a revised version of the Macarena rear wing that the team intended to try in Austria. McLaren abandoned testing their version of a rotating rear wing in Austria, without actually running it on track at the Red Bull Ring, after detecting issues during its installation.

Not being able to bring updates that immediately work has only been a part of the problem for McLaren this year, too. McLaren know the MCL40’s shorter wheelbase holds Norris and Piastri back, and their engineers are still thought to be trying to figure out why it is an issue.