Steiner: Baku blunder taught Piastri key lesson

Former Haas Formula 1 team boss Guenther Steiner believes Oscar Piastri’s nightmare Azerbaijan Grand Prix may prove a blessing in disguise, as it taught the McLaren driver a vital lesson in his championship battle with teammate Lando Norris.

The Australian’s weekend in Baku unraveled almost from the start. A crash in qualifying left him mired in ninth, before a jump-start penalty compounded his troubles.

Then, in an overzealous bid to claw back ground on the opening lap, Piastri misjudged his braking, clattered into the barriers, and retired before the race had truly begun.

Despite the setback, Piastri only dropped six points to Norris in the standings. But for Steiner, the bigger picture lies in how the 24-year-old responds.

“Get it out of the system”

Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, Steiner insisted the episode was far from catastrophic.

“But hopefully he’s got it out of the system now,” Steiner said. “But he was pretty cool afterwards. He said, you know, it was a shit weekend, they happen, you know.

“To all normal human beings, it happens. I had a lot of shit days, and you just get up again and go again.

“How should we speak about a lot of other drivers who had more than one shit weekend? I mean, Oscar had one shit weekend, and that’s it, you know. I think he can recover pretty quickly from it; done and dusted.”

Steiner even joked that Piastri’s crash gave him a new perspective.

“Get it out of the system, boom, I go now again – he just wanted to watch the race from that position in that chair. That’s what he was dreaming of. It was a childhood dream of his, and that is how he did it!”

A Harsh but Useful Reminder

For Steiner, Baku’s chaos was ultimately the result of a young driver trying too hard to fix earlier mistakes.

“When you start off the weekend like he did in qualifying, with what he did I think at the start, obviously, he wanted a little bit more to make up as much as he can,” the Italian explained.

“Made a mistake again, and then just misjudged the braking because he wanted too much too quick.

“I think what he learned out of it is, if you do something wrong, it’s no point to try and make it up by making more mistakes, by taking too much risk. But it all started in qualifying.”

Title fight still wide open

Up to now, Piastri’s season has been impressively consistent, with only a minor off in Australia – and his Baku blunder – marring his otherwise steady campaign. Steiner believes that resilience will help him bounce back stronger from his most recent setback.

• Read also: Steiner views Williams Baku podium with Sainz as ‘an outlier’

“It’s only one weekend, so it’s all done, and now he starts fresh,” he said.

With Norris closing in, Baku might yet be remembered as the moment Piastri learned the fine art of patience – a skill just as critical in a championship fight as raw speed.

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