“Papaya rules” has quickly become the most hated phrase in Formula 1 — and for good reason.
The so called “code” and rules of engagement within the McLaren garage have been widely criticised throughout McLaren’s year of dominance — but Sunday night’s Italian Grand Prix has taken the level of outrage to a new level.
Aussie Oscar Piastri barely put up a fight when told to give up his place to teammate Lando Norris late in the race.
McLaren principal Andrea Stella has continued to justify the team’s order after Norris was compromised by a botched pit stop on lap 46 — one lap after Piastri had been called into the pits to be fitted with a set of soft tyres.
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He said he never doubted Piastri would make way because it was what the drivers had “agreed” to as part of its “papaya rules”.
Stella’s faith is exactly why Norris and Piastri have been labelled “puppets” in an extraordinary twist to Sunday’s drama.
Standard operating procedure would normally be for the team to pit its leading driver before following with its second driver the following lap.
However, with Max Verstappen looking unstoppable out in front and Charles Leclerc showing some threat of catching Piastri, McLaren made the unusual move to “box” the 24-year-old Aussie first.
Norris seemingly only agreed to the strategy when promised on team radio he would not be “undercut” by his teammate.
However, Piastri overtook his championship rival with a 1.91 second stop — the fastest of the race — as Norris was strangled by a faulty wheel gun during his stop.
McLaren then took the divisive move of “restoring” the order because Norris had been disadvantaged.
Comparisons to the team’s drama at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix were immediately made — even by Piastri’s race engineer Tom Stallard during the race.
Last year’s race at the Hungaroring saw Norris pit first despite being behind his teammate. Norris emerged from the stops with the race lead but refused to “restore” the order until the closing laps of the race after several prompts on team radio.
The other thing that separated Sunday’s incident from 2024 was that Piastri took the race lead because of a botched pit stop.
Despite this, the so-called “papaya rules” were implemented and Piastri let his championship rival past.
It was a six-point swing in the driver’s championship, with Piastri’s lead reduced to 31 points heading into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on September 21.
It’s impossible to imagine any scenario where reigning world champion Max Verstappen would let a championship rival pass without putting up a fight — and the Red Bull driver openly scoffed when told about the McLaren switcheroo.
“Ha! Just because he had a slow stop,” Verstappen told his race engineer.
The ruthless Dutchman’s laugh showed exactly why “papaya rules” are on the nose — they’re bloody boring.
The team’s dull, disciplined dynamic is just one of many reasons “papaya rules” have come under fire from across the Formula 1 world.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said there was “no right answer” to the team’s dilemma, but also warned the team it has set a dangerous precedent.
Wolff had the impossible job of trying to stop Sir Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg from tearing each other apart when they fought for the 2016 world title.
Wolff’s comments about Piastri and Norris further expose the problem with “papaya rules”.
“I think we had two different animals in the car,” Wolff said of the Hamilton-Rosberg rivalry when speaking with The Telegraph.
“They were two assassins – actually assassin’s not the right word. They were two fierce combatants that took no prisoners, racing against each other.
“At times, very difficult to manage for the team. I don’t see that at McLaren. It’s a bit corporate.”
Formula 1 journalist Tom Cary further emphasised this, calling the McLaren pillow fight “boring”.
“Those rivalries (like Hamilton-Rosberg) are what fans want to see, of course,” he wrote in The Telegraph.
“They are box office. But they do not make for a calm atmosphere in the motorhome. Some may think less of Piastri for accepting team orders. But he is a shrewd operator. Can you imagine the hullabaloo if he had not. For the sake of three points won compared to three points lost? Piastri is playing the long game, even if it is a bit boring.”
Thirteen-time Grand Prix winner David Coulthard has pointed out another problem with McLaren’s toothless approach, saying he could not help but feel the team “manipulated the result” of Sunday’s race.
“Inside the racer and inside the little boy that grew up a fan of the sport, I want to see racing wheel-to-wheel,” he said, per planetf1.com.
“And yes, sometimes engines will blow up. Yes, sometimes you’ll get involved in an incident.
“This (Sunday’s strategy) just feels a little bit manipulating. Manipulating the result, and that feels uncomfortable, I have to say.”
Motorsport.com’s Oleg Karpov wrote: “What Monza might have done, though, is open Pandora’s box for McLaren.
“In Greek mythology, Pandora was the one who released all the troubles of the world by lifting the lid she was told not to touch. Once you decide that some mistakes are part of racing and some are not, once you make fairness conditional, the lid is off – and the questions will keep coming back.”
Motorsport writer Jonathan McEvoy also reported Stella’s team-first culture has gone too far.
“The Italian (Stella), with the support of chief executive Zak Brown, has managed the historically impossible by neutering the selfish alpha tendency among closely matched intra-team title rivals,” he wrote for The Daily Mail.
“This is the shiniest nicey-nicey enmity in Formula 1 memory. Boring for the observer; an act of managerial aplomb by Stella.
“He has diffused many a ticking bomb, but this was reasonableness gone too far.”
PlanetF1.com reporter Oliver Harden also inadvertently labelled Piastri a “fool” for submitting to the team’s order.
“It was not Oscar Piastri’s responsibility to dig his teammate out of that hole,” he wrote.
“Yet still the pit wall asked anyway. And Piastri – more fool him – obliged.”
Harden also slammed McLaren for “stage managing” the championship scrap.
“Be in no doubt that Piastri, like many of the great drivers in history, has a darker, selfish side too,” he wrote.
“Yet there was Oscar, like Lando in Budapest, making his dissatisfaction plain over team radio but following the requests almost without question.
He went on to write: “There has been some debate over recent months about why the battle between Piastri and Norris, good-natured though it is, seems to lack the competitive edge and tension of previous title tilts between teammates.
“The answer finally hit home at Monza: McLaren is determined to stage manage this fight every step of the way.
“That policy extends, it seems, to surgically removing the backbone of both drivers and quashing all sense of independent thinking.
“Title protagonists? On this evidence, Norris and Piastri are more like puppets.”
Adding to the pile-on, leading F1 journalist Matt Gallagher also said on the P1 podcast: “A lot of people are finding it hard to get fully invested in this championship fight because of this nicey-nice fairness BS that we’re currently watching.”
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