Former F1 team principal baffled by McLaren role reversal

Both McLaren drivers are battling for their first Formula 1 world championship this season with three rounds to go.

Norris holds a 24-point advantage at the top of the standings after taking a dominant victory last time out in Brazil. Norris has won the last two races while Piastri hasn't stood on the podium since Italy.

Steiner feels the swing in performance isn't something many people expected as the season draws to a close.

He told The Red Flags podcast: "The strange thing here is the switch between Oscar and Lando. What Oscar did, until five races ago, Lando is now doing. 'Let's switch roles now. I'm the winner or the loser.' It's very weird, I've never seen anything like this, and I didn't expect it."

The two McLaren drivers have had the quickest car for much of the season as the British team wrapped up the Constructors' Championship in Singapore.

Despite this, Piastri has stuttered since the summer break and hasn't won a race since the Dutch Grand Prix.

Piastri endured a difficult weekend at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after crashing in the Sprint before an incident with Kimi Antonelli in the Grand Prix.

The Australian was handed a 10-second time penalty before climbing back up the order to fifth place.

The race weekend saw him fall further behind Norris in the standings and Giancarlo Minardi felt it was a subpar result.

“I think, unfortunately, Piastri was insufficient in this Grand Prix, as he simply wasn’t up to the mark,” Minardi told motorsport.it.