Steiner sees Verstappen nearly becoming a Ferrari legend: 'He'd be forever'
F1 News
According to former Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner, Max Verstappen's start was too aggressive at the Abu Dhabi GP, where into Turn 1, he made contact with Oscar Piastri's McLaren. However, he also pointed out how that action could favour the Australian in the future.
Steiner on the Verstappen-Piastri incident
At the Abu Dhabi GP, Max Verstappen got off the a great start. The Dutchman could overtake Carlos Sainz before heading into Turn 1 already, and tried an ambitious move on Oscar Piastri. However, both drivers span off, and the stewards' deemed Verstappen being responsible, giving him a 10-second time penalty.
"Max just drove… Max was very aggressive. And obviously, Oscar could have avoided it. But it was like, you didn't expect that he was going this hard at him. But again, you cannot tell a driver how to do the start because the start happens, there are cars going wide open. You cannot say, ‘oh, don't do this’, ‘don't do that,’ because there are situations coming up you cannot predict," Guenther Steiner began about the incident on the Red Flags Podcast.
According to the former team principal, McLaren's approach of a safer start also backfired. "For sure they [McLaren] said ‘let's try to avoid crashes’, but you cannot say just ‘oh, I give up, I just cover Leclerc.’ That doesn't work in racing in my opinion. You need to say try to be as careful as you can but do not just try to avoid everybody, because if you try hard to avoid everybody, you will hit somebody."
"They were in a good spot anyway. So, I mean, why do you think they were so confident going in that they win the world championship? Because they needed to try hard to f*** it up," he continued.
'Piastri can now claim to be a team player in a different way'
Now, he also sees that Piastri could appeal to his team next time he would be asked to be a 'team player'. "You need to go for it. It ended up, yes, it ended up [with him wanting] to be a team player. Maybe not wanted, but now he can claim he did want to be this, a team player and that [happened]..."
On the other hand, Steiner sees that Verstappen could have become a Ferrari legend with an even more eager maneouvre, without even competing for the Maranello-based team. "If he [Verstappen] took out both of them [Norris and Piastri], yes [he would have been the most popular man in Maranello]. Forever," he concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Estéban den Toom
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