With McLaren running away with both Formula One championships this year, there’s been a he amount of attention paid to what is known as the team’s “papaya rules.” When Zak Brown first used this phrase it was after a cock up in Monza last year, where an attack from Oscar Piastri on his team mate allowed Charles Leclerc to claim victory in Ferrari’s home Grand Prix.
Mulling over the matter post chequered flag, the McLaren CEO accepted whilst Piastri’s move was “aggressive” it didn’t break the code. “Papaya rules are it’s your team mate; race him hard, race him clean, don’t touch, that happened. It was an aggressive pass so that’s a conversation we’ll have, that was a bit nerve wracking on pit wall but it’s really just respect your team mate,” he said.
Yet Papaya rules in fact have an over rider which states the interests of the McLaren team come first. Of course Piastri didn’t realise how his move on Norris would actually play out, but it did not serve the best interests of the team given Charles Leclerc came from behind the squabbling McLaren pair to take the win.
Piastri reminded of ‘papaya rules’
This year the rules have been mentioned on a couple of occasions, both when Piastri has made a risky move to pass his team mate. In Austria he tried to dive down the inside of turn four but failed, locking his tyre and missing his team mate by inches. Again in Hungary, the Aussie made a desperate lunge into turn one with two laps to go, again locking his tyres but this time the blue on blue miss was just millimetres from disaster.
With the constructors’ championship all but done and dusted, McLaren face a new challenge to their driver behaviour code following the events at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix. The team pitted the race leader Oscar Piastri early to cover Charles Leclerc committing him to a two stop race. Meanwhile Norris who had lost places at the start of the race decide his best opportunity of passing Russell ahead would be to stay out as long as he could.
This morphed Lando into a one stop race which gave him track position ahead of his team mate who failed to make his fresher tyre advantage pay off. A disappointed Piastri after the race appeared to question the fairness of the team allowing a split strategy between their drivers and both drivers have confirmed there has been a significant debrief over the matter before they arrived in Zandvoort.
Split strategy in Hungary gives McLaren a headache
With limited overtaking opportunities on the track amongst the sand dunes, the debate before the race is whether Pirelli and the FIA’s efforts to make the two stop more attractive has actually worked. If so, this strategic opportunity on offer may see the two McLaren’s race again on a different strategy, but how will McLaren govern this to ensure their ‘fairness mantra’ remains.
With Max Verstappen and his weapon of a fresh set of soft tyres under his belt will be a danger to the McLaren pair leaving McLaren with somewhat of a headache when it comes to their drivers strategies. Yet the team have had some kind of strategy restrictions in place all year. The leading driver is offered the call over when he wishes to make his pit stop and in a number of race weekends, there has been a clear and optimal moment for that to happen.
The race in Hungary remains a flashpoint behind the aces in Woking, with Andreas Stella insisting to reporters this weekend that the strategic divergence was an innocent evolution of how the race unfolded, rather than some cunning pre-determined plan.
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Divergence allowed unlike Hamilton v Rosberg
Stella emphasised that the rules of engagement between the two drivers are clear and respected. “The strategy is one of the variables through which the competition between Lando and Oscar can express itself,” he said. “What you’ve seen so far has always been within our rules.” This means the team will restrict the first choice of pit stop to their leading driver, but from thereon opportunities to diverge on strategy may well open up.
Unlike the Hamilton and Rosberg era where the two drivers were forced to run the same strategies regardless of the race situation, McLaren accept the unpredictables and unforeseen occasions which occur all the time in racing and unlike Mercedes they will not penalise one driver by insisting his strategy remains the same as his team mate.
Piastri himself acknowledged this in Zandvoort: “Being the second car in the train, you’ve got less to lose. It would be unfair to neutralise that just because of wanting to be on the same strategy,” he admitted. When asked about the revised ‘papaya rules’ from a strategy perspective, team boss Stella was cautious in his response.
Drivers not “free to do what they want”
“When it comes to the options from a strategic point of view in between our two drivers, we do have some rules for that. I’m not going to share what rules they are, but whatever you have seen so far in terms of how the strategy has been utilised, it’s always been within our rules,” he said. Interestingly Stella reverts to the overriding principle McLaren have maintained, that all this sits under the “best interests of the team” mantra.
“They don’t mean that the drivers are free to do what they want. They are free to race in the sense that we want to give them the opportunity to express their talent, their abilities, their aspirations. But for instance, these should always be made within the boundaries of the team interest coming first. And the team interest may have different meanings depending on the situation.”
It is of course impossible for a team to create a rulebook which covers every eventuality, and as proved last year in Monza, the details of the rules of engagement do in fact conflict with the interests of the team – in hindsight.
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Situational based rules may become the drama
McLaren’s “freedom within limits” kind of philosophy is a wonderfully British compromise, like being told you can have as much cake as you like but only if you eat it with the proper cutlery. The papaya team insists that its drivers are free to race, yet also not entirely free to do as they wish. In other words, Norris and Piastri are encouraged to be gladiators, provided they first consult the team handbook and promise not to scuff the armour.
Stella’s insistence that “rules of engagement” are in place is a reminder that McLaren is determined to avoid becoming Mercedes circa 2016, where Hamilton and Rosberg turned the garage into a UFC ring. The papaya management would prefer a chess match with an occasional tactical flourish. Yet Formula One drivers, much like grandmasters, rarely agree to stalemates when there are titles on the line.
The irony is that McLaren’s policy could produce the very drama it seeks to contain. Allowing split strategies is both noble and dangerous: noble because it honours the racers’ instincts, dangerous because sooner or later one driver will accuse the team of favouring the other. If Hungary was a overture, Zandvoort may deliver the next act.
McLaren boss misjudges Verstappen’s ‘race advantage
McLaren locked out the front row for the Dutch Grand Prix as expected, but the story of qualifying was more nuanced than the headlines suggested. Oscar Piastri claimed pole position with a decisive lap in Q3, overturning the trend of Lando Norris leading the way in every practice session. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen kept the margin much tighter than anticipated, securing third just two tenths back after McLaren had looked nearly a second clear in final practice.
For Red Bull, the result offered a glimmer of hope. “This morning we were still eight tenths behind McLaren and now it’s only two tenths,” Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com. “On used tyres we’re even closer, so I think we’re in a position to make McLaren nervous on Sunday.”
Verstappen himself was more measured, warning that holding onto third could prove difficult. “Our race pace has not been the best compared to qualifying. I just hope that at least we can keep the guys behind us literally behind us in the race.”… READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
