Last Updated on October 9 2025, 11:55 am

Piastri snubs Zak Brown in team celebrations – The McLaren F1 love in is over. Once the team realised they were the dominant force in Formula One the decision was made to enforce ‘papaya rules’ intended to prevent the kind of chaos Mercedes suffered during the Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg days.

The Mercedes civil war began in 2014 when after spending an eye watering $1bn in R&D for the new hybrid power units, the team realised they had build the most dominant car/engine power unit in the history of the sport. One or their drivers would clearly win the championship and so battle commenced.

It all kicked off in Spa in 2014, when Nico Rosberg ran into Lewis Hamilton in a championship season where the title race went down to the final race in Abu Dhabi. Despite being childhood friends, Rosberg and Hamilton became the best of enemies and their bitter rivalry enthralled fans for three seasons before the German driver decided to retire.

 

 

 

Since then, McLaren have become the only team where from early on in the season it was clear one of their drivers would become a first time F1 champion. Papaya rules have dominated the headlines as Zak Brown and Andreas Stella attempt to retain harmony within the team.

To be fair to the Woking based outfit, these ‘rules’ have allowed their drivers to race unlike in the Mercedes dominant era, and the principal that the team comes first has been propounded at each of the Grand Prix weekends.

However, there have been cracks appearing in this unanimity as McLaren have attempted to correct apparent misfortune on track with team orders. In Monza, Norris was ahead of his team mate and gave up his right to the first pit stop to ensure Piastri was not undercut by a rival.

Lando’s pit stop a lap later saw a faulty wheel gun see him stationary for around five seconds with the result he was overtaken by his team mate. The team ordered their Australian driver to hand back the position, but Piastri was unhappy given the matter had apparently been discussed and was to be treated as a racing incident.

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The Singapore weekend was not McLaren’s finest hour despite them claiming their first back to back constructor titles since 1991. Both cars were off the pace in qualifying, with Piastri starting the Grand Prix in third place with his team mate directly behind him in fifth.

The race was decided in the first three corners where Lando Norris made an electrifying start while Piastri’s efforts to pass Verstappen came to nought. The Australian attempted to go around the outside of the slow starting world champion and in doing so open-end the door for his team mate to make a move down the inside.

Realising his mistake Oscar moved to block his team mate into turn 2, but Norris was already alongside and had right to space in the corner. Lando clipped the back of Verstappen which bounced him across the track into his team mate, who did well not to end up in the wall on the exit of turn 3.

“Yeah, I mean, that wasn’t very team-like, but sure,” said Piastri on team radio. The silence from his engineer solicited a further response. “So, are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?” he said. “What’s the go there?”

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Oscar was informed that the stewards were taking no action and that the team would review the matter after the race. Yet he continued to vent his frustration over the radio saying: “Mate, that is not fair. I’m sorry, that’s not fair. If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate, then that’s a pretty shit job of avoiding.”

Of course Piastri was hoping the team would return the Monza favour and instruct Lando to hand back the place. It was not to be. In the first stint Norris was far quicker than Piastri anyway and opened up a six second gap at one point before the pity stop window approached.

The usually mild mannered and softly spoken Oscar Piastri came in for plenty of criticism on social media. @dervert said with little sympathy “This is how racing should be done. You’re fighting for a world championship.” @clarkieJ48 was scathing. “Aussie whinger. Its called racing Oscar. Grow up.”

“I’m ready for the evil Piastri era,” one fan noted, while another claimed: “Finally Oscar’s villain arc is complete.” Piastri was notably absent from the McLaren podium celebrations using his mandated media duties as an excuse to avoid having to cheer his team mate’s third place finish. On McLaren’s biggest day for almost 35 years, this appeared somewhat petulant, but hopefully will inspire something more of a rivalry between the team mates.

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By way of contrast last time out in Baku, Alex Albon who had a disastrous race, was front and centre to celebrate his team mate Carlos Sainz’s podium finish. Ironically the last time McLaren won back to back constructor titles it was in the Senna/Prost era, where the team mates became arch enemies. Yet the smiling Andrea Stella maintained after the race, McLaren would continue with the ‘nice guy show.’

Having plied his trade in F1 as an engineer, Stella is amongst the least interesting of the team principals when it comes to media duties. His efforts to defuse the potential row between his drivers left fans with their eyes glazed over as he repeated his well worn mantra’s over team harmony.

When pressed on his views over the latest spat between his drivers, the Italian had this to say. “We will have good reviews, good conversations and, like after Canada, we’ll come back stronger and even more united. Oscar made some statements while he was in the car but that’s the kind of character that we want to have from our drivers. They have to make their position very clear, that’s what we ask them.

Stella did not address the matter of Piastri turning off his team radio during the cool down lap as Zak Brown was congratulating him for his efforts in bringing home the constructors’ championship.

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“Our review needs to be very detailed, very analytical, it needs to take into account the point of view of our two drivers, and then we will form a common opinion based on which we will see whether we can just confirm our initial interpretation or there’s something else that we should conclude.

“Every time we start our conversations with the drivers, we always remind ourselves, as a premise: ‘This is hard’. Because this is the only matter in which, when you race together as a team, actually you can’t have exactly the same interest for the two drivers, because they want to pursue their aspiration. This is a foundational principle of the way we were racing at McLaren.

“We need to be accurate, because there’s a lot at stake. That’s not only the championship points, but it’s also the trust of our drivers in the way we operate as a team, and this is, if anything, even more foundational than the points themselves.”

….zzzzzzzzz. Oh sorry about that. Seemed a good opportunity for a power nap. Bring back Ron Dennis….

 

 

 

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