McLaren will block out the noise from “uninformed” critics as it seeks to provide Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri with a second chance to fight for the world championship.
Norris clinched his maiden world title and completed McLaren’s first championship double in more than a quarter-century at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last season, seeing off Max Verstappen by two points and teammate Piastri by 13.
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It completed a significant comeback for Norris, who trailed Piastri for 15 rounds and fell to 34 points off the lead at the Dutch Grand Prix with nine rounds remaining.
Piastri’s sudden tumble from what looked like a comfortable lead sparked a raft of conspiracy theories over favouritism at McLaren, with the teams sometimes controversial application of its so-called papaya rules appearing to benefit the Briton.
The matter made it all the way to parliament, where Senator Matt Canavan asked during a committee inquiry whether “McLaren is biased against Oscar Piastri” and if that was “costing him the world championship”.
Anthony Chisholm, an assistant minister, replied: “I definitely think he’s copped some raw decisions this year.”
Despite Piastri having declared that he “got a fair shot’ at the title last year, some remain convinced that McLaren is fighting more strongly in his teammate’s corner.
The McLaren CEO clapped back at Canavan last year in the lead-up to the title decider, but the American said it would be incumbent on his team to block out the noise this year as Piastri and Norris reignited their rivalry.
“It can be frustrating when some people — this isn’t country specific — are very uninformed and the statements you see are just ridiculous,” Brown said.
“As Oscar has communicated many times, he knows he’s getting a fair shake at it. You win some, you lose some. Things fall your way, things don’t fall your way.
“We lost Oscar some points [last year]; we lost Lando a lot of points in Holland.
“I think we just need to keep our head down and stay focused. The people that matter most to us know that we bring total sporting fairness to our racing team.
“It’s a shame that people in parliament, who I would say are pretty far removed from understanding Formula 1, vocalise things like that.
“I wouldn’t dare — because I’m not knowledgeable — comment on the job they’re doing, but I bet I could make some comments.”
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The debate over sporting fairness will rumble into 2026, with McLaren tipped to compete at the front again and with both Piastri and Norris likely to reignite their internal battle for supremacy.
The closeness of their battle last year forced McLaren into compromising positions several times, starting with the team orders at the Italian Grand Prix, which Piastri said mentally hung over him during his career-worst weekend in Azerbaijan.
The team twisted itself in knots over first-lap collisions in Singapore and in Austin, and it catastrophically opted not to pit either driver during an early safety car in Qatar in part because it didn’t want to negatively affect one driver more than the other.
The precedents set by each occasion made enforcing the rules more complicated, but team boss Andrea Stella said in 2026 the decision-making process would be “streamlined”.
Piastri, who tended to lose points through McLaren’s interventions, said a modified approach would prevent the “headaches” of 2025.
“It will look different,” he said. “Streamlining it is a wise decision to make.
“As a general principle and a general way of going racing, it does bring a lot of positives with it; it’s just how we refine that to try and keep it to just positives, basically.
“Some tweaks for sure this year, but I think it’s pretty clear that we still want to go racing as much as a team as we can.”
Brown, however, said the difference in approach will be minimal, with the team sticking with its fundamental ethos.
“There won’t be much change, because they were free to race last year,” he said.
“We actually talk to the drivers race by race. While we do a season review and a season preview, we’re kind of like a racing car we’re always developing how we go racing on a race-by-race basis.
“They continue to be free to race. We will be strategic and intelligent when situations arise.”
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