Guenther Steiner backs Oscar Piastri for F1 title

Guenther Steiner has backed McLaren driver Oscar Piastri for a future Formula 1 world championship if he "starts off good on the right foot". 

The Australian driver was an immediate success after he joined the Woking outfit at the beginning of 2023. Despite being new to the sport, he showed the ability of a much more experienced driver, and when armed with a car fast enough to compete at the front of the grid, he won his first Grand Prix in Hungary.

Another win followed in Baku, and by the end of the season, he helped put the Papaya team at the top of the Constructors' Championship for the first time since 1998. He finished fourth in the championship, 82 points behind his teammate Lando Norris, who finished second.

Piastri's potential hasn't gone unnoticed by former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner, as he discussed the upcoming season on CNN. 

"He can be [world champion]. As I said, you always need to be in the right car. But in the moment, he could be already this year. I said it before. This year, if he starts off good on the right foot. I always say, Oscar, I don't know him personally very well. I know [him] from saying hello, but I know Mark Webber, who coaches him."

Webber is known to be a hands on manager for Piastri, with mighty experience from a successful career in F1 himself where he collected nine wins and narrowly missed out on a world championship win in 2010 with Red Bull. He's been able to infuse the young driver with everything he's learnt over his 12 seasons in the sport.

"That is very important because Mark can teach Oscar his mistakes he shouldn't be making because Mark made them himself. So, it's the best teacher to have and say, ‘Hey, let's take a shortcut here. Don't do this because I did it. They got it wrong.'" 

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Piastri shares Steiner's optimism. Talking to the media following a filming day in Silverstone, he was clear of his expectations of himself.

“It’s definitely a clean slate [this year],” the 23-year-old responded. “Everyone is starting on zero again, and I think last season towards the end it was natural that I still had the opportunities to go out and put my best foot forward.

“Yes there were a couple of situations where I ended up helping Lando, but there were some ways he still helped out me so it wasn’t as clear-cut as that. But definitely we are starting on a clean slate and I do think that I can become World Champion this year.

“I feel like 12 months ago I was going into the season still with some weaknesses that I wasn’t particularly confident with. I think through last season I addressed them, it’s now just about addressing them every weekend and making sure that I’m putting my best foot forward every weekend and that is what is going to be the difference.

“I’m confident, I think we’ve still got some things to work on and [we’re] definitely not the finished product, but I don’t think anyone necessarily is and I think if we can work on some of the things that we’ve set out to do in this off-season then I’ll have a lot of tools to be able to try to make that happen.”