“Young drivers are always a certain risk,” Guenther Steiner unsure if Oscar Piastri will deliver for McLaren
Follow Us
Oscar Piastri (L) Guenther Steiner (R)
Oscar Piastri will drive for McLaren in 2023, after a long saga with Alpine. Eventually, he was freed up by the Contract Recognition Board to go to the British team, and he will be replacing Daniel Ricciardo there, who was not at his best in the past two years. However, Haas team principal Guenther Steiner thinks the move is a risk.
The Australian has had a decorated junior career, but despite winning Formula Renault in 2019, F3 in 2020, and F2 in 2021, there was no seat available to him in 2022, and he had to sit the year out before he took his future into his own hands. There is certainly expectation attached to the move, and Piastri will be up against Lando Norris, who is considered one of the best drivers on the grid already at just 23.
Steiner, who had earlier said he was ‘done’ with rookies, and chose to go with the experienced Nico Hulkenberg over giving Mick Schumacher a third year in F1, is of the opinion that young drivers are always a gamble. As per Nine’s Wide World of Sports, he said: “Young drivers are always a certain risk.”
He elaborated that there are now many young drivers on the grid that are ‘outstanding’ but at the time of the move, no one could tell for sure how it would go for them: “We know now that George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris are all outstanding racing drivers. But we didn’t really know that beforehand.”
Guenther Steiner: Even McLaren don’t know how the Oscar Piastri ‘gamble’ will turn out
Like Oscar Piastri, Mick Schumacher, the 2020 F2 champion, also had a heavy weight of expectations on his shoulder, but for a different reason: Mick’s father, Michael, is the (joint) record champion of Formula 1, and is widely considered to be one of, if not the, greatest drivers of all time. 2021 was a throwaway year for him and Haas, but Schumacher was unable to match up to the team’s expectations in his second year.
Despite the expectations, hype and buzz around Schumacher, he is now eventually out of a seat in F1 after just two years in the sport. A parallel can be drawn to Oscar Piastri, who is a highly-rated rookie. Guenther Steiner says even McLaren do not know if he will be able to deliver: “Everyone sees Oscar Piastri as a fabulous talent, but honestly even McLaren doesn’t know if it’s all going to be as hoped.”
Indeed, no one can tell for sure how something will work out. Fans, and everyone else, will just have to wait until the 2023 season gets going. Piastri has been given a small boost in that he was released early from his Alpine contract, which allowed him to get acquainted with new surroundings at McLaren than would have been the case in ‘normal’ circumstances.
Stay Updated!
Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)