"There are no Papaya Rules anymore," says championship contender Lando Norris. "We've never had them."

As the controversy over McLaren's institution of team orders at Monza rumbles on, Lando Norris appears to have thrown fuel on the fire by claiming that there are no Papaya Rules.

The Woking team first revealed the concept last year, with Zak Brown claiming that the rule allows the team's drivers to "race each other respectfully, and give each other enough room and don't touch each other".

Despite a number of incidents, and ongoing claims that the team tends to favour Norris over his teammate, either strategically or, as was the case on Sunday, issuing precise instructions, McLaren makes much of the concept, claiming that it is unique to the Woking team and fair to both its drivers and fans alike.

Not so, says Norris.

"There are no Papaya Rules anymore," he tells DAZN. "We've never had them."

Though admitting that there is a document detailing racing protocol between the pair, the Briton insists: "It's not even a page long!

"The important thing is it says 'Fair'," he adds. "And this covers many things, fairness for me and for Oscar.

"I don't choose that these things happen," he insists. "We don't care what's happened in the past, but we do what we think is right for us."

Referring to Sunday's controversy, when Piastri was ordered to hand back second place to his teammate following a botched pit stop, Norris says: "It's not what I want nor what the team wants. It makes things complicated, and complicated the position.

"But it's what we all as a team, both drivers, decided was the right thing to do if it happened," he adds. "It had to be corrected. If it had happened to Oscar, we would have done exactly the same."

Meanwhile, former F1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone - never one to involve himself in matters controversial - has criticised McLaren for its actions on Sunday.

"They talk about fairness all the time," he told Blick. "But is it fair for Piastri if he is punished for a mistake made by the team? No.

"You slowly get the feeling that McLaren prefers a world champion named Lando Norris," he added. "Mistakes like missed pit stops, engine failures, and suspension failures may have become less common, but they're part of the sport."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 16/09/2025 10:14

"@Kenji - that’s a strawman argument. Nobody is saying every tiny team error should be corrected – the line is simple: when a pre-agreed principle (in this case, Norris conceding priority on condition of no undercut) is broken by a team-caused error, fairness requires restoring the order. That’s not a slippery slope, it’s a straightforward application of what was agreed.

As for Abu Dhabi, the issue there wasn’t a courtroom matter – it was that Masi patently misapplied the rules, which the FIA itself later admitted. That error wrongly decided an entire championship, but you think it was fair. By contrast, Monza was a straightforward correction made fully within the rules but you think it was both unfair and illegal. "

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2. Posted by kenji, 16/09/2025 3:52

"@Ricardo-sanchez .... so I fully understand your baseline are you saying that any 'error' made by the team at a pitstop can legitimately be used as an excuse to alter the race results? For example, a driver exceeds his marks by 10/20 cms and the wheelgun misaligned resulting in delays of a few tenths. That driver rejoins and finds himself a few tenths in arrears of his team mate. Does the team then make the race result adjustments ? Where do you draw the line?

As for your throwaway, was Masi ever proved to have illegally manipulated the race result in favour of Red Bull? There have been rumours of Masi under orders to alter the result but no one has ever proved it in a court of law which f it was true is where it would've ended up. "

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3. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 15/09/2025 18:23

"kenji - that’s a false dichotomy. There’s a third, more obvious explanation: Piastri wasn’t lying or deluded, he just had the full context after the race and accepted the decision as fair. What happened at Monza was simply team orders being used after a team-caused error, not manipulation.

The irony is striking: in AD’21, when the rules were genuinely applied incorrectly and it handed Verstappen the title, you’ve consistently defended Masi’s decision. That really was a manipulated outcome which denied a title “on merit and unassisted”. But you excuse that incident whilst attacking McLaren for a perfectly legal, transparent correction! "

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4. Posted by kenji, 15/09/2025 2:01

"@Ricardo-sanchez.....You appear to have missed the point that there were priors to this exact possibility as alluded to by Piastri? Oh, I see. Piastri was lying and just making it all up in an adrenaline fuelled [ heat of the moment ] rave. Either that or a misinterpretation of the actual treatment of track position should a pitstop go awry. It matters little now. The race result was manipulated and Piastri was stiffed. His attitude towards the result is understandable...the result can't be altered. Better to plan for the future races and put 100% behind his effort to take a legitimate WDC.....on merit and unassisted."

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5. Posted by Superbird70, 14/09/2025 15:22

""It wasn’t bad luck or driver error, it was 100% team-caused," so a test of Piastri's loyalty to Papaya rules, because a 'crew error' isn't bad luck. That's poor training, lack of equipment maintenance, not following standard operating procedures, or a deliberate failure to follow instructions."

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6. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 14/09/2025 8:48

"@kenji - Oscar’s radio comment was in the heat-of-the-moment. After the race – with the full context – he agreed the decision was fair. Norris had given up pit priority only on the condition it wouldn’t flip their order, and crew error broke that. It wasn’t bad luck or driver error, it was 100% team-caused, and the planned stop order had been changed to help Oscar. Far from being unfair, it seems to me that McLaren is doing a stellar job (geddit?) of maintaining equilibrium between the 2 championship contenders. When you look at how difficult that’s been for other teams - historically - the team deserves praise, IMO. "

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7. Posted by kenji, 14/09/2025 2:07

"@Ricardo-sanchez According to the in car coms between Piastri and Stallard. Oscar stated words to the effect that 'this problem had been discussed prior and that if it was to occur that it would be treated as a racing incident'. That's my impression of the discussion and clearly it was also Piastri's understanding If so then why should Piastri be obliged to agree with a race fix? How could Joseph agree to to give Norris a place back in the event of a random pit error that caused a change in track position....before a pit stop had even occurred? "

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8. Posted by Superbird70, 13/09/2025 21:07

"@Ricardo_sanchez; I am agreeing with you. It is just the perception of the results being manipulated. "

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9. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 13/09/2025 20:02

"@superbird70 - quite clearly, there’s a big difference between driver error and team error. If a driver runs wide and loses a place, that’s racing and it stands. But at Monza the positions flipped solely because of a bungled pit stop and after an agreement that the stops wouldn’t change the order. If the roles were reversed and Norris had jumped Piastri through a crew mistake, Piastri’s fans would rightly be crying manipulation – the principle works both ways."

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10. Posted by Superbird70, 13/09/2025 19:43

"@Ricardo_sanchez; point taken. So if Norris had a minor off (ground hog, wind etc), and Piastri had passed him then Piastri wouldn't have to the place back. Only team orders and team mistakes would keep Piastri behind Norris. Fair enough.
"

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11. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 13/09/2025 15:46

"@superbird70 - That’s a hypothetical, with no bearing on what actually happened, which was raised at the post race press conference.

The swap was fair and logical because the pit error simply flipped the McLarens’ order; if other cars had been between them, as both drivers said, it would simply have stood as misfortune. "

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12. Posted by Superbird70, 13/09/2025 15:17

"@Chester- Hypothetically, what if Norris' pitstop had put him behind Leclerc? Would Piastri be obligated to slow down to sandwich the Ferrari and afford Norris the opportunity to pass both the Ferrari and the second McLaren?"

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13. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 13/09/2025 13:34

"@Chester - you think a driver asking his team not to implement a strategy that would disadvantage him shows poor character? How so? He was the one with priority in the pit stop strategy. The team asked him to defer to his teammate. He agreed, but simply asked for confirmation that it would not result in a change of positions. "

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14. Posted by Chester, 13/09/2025 12:49

"Just wow. This speaks volumes to Norris character:

"1) Norris had already conceded his normal priority on pit stops, but only on the specific condition it wouldn’t reverse their running order."

"

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15. Posted by Ricardo_sanchez, 13/09/2025 2:25

"@BigJack - It isn’t about how many seconds a pit stop costs but about the outcome - if a driver who was clearly ahead makes a concession to help the team on the express condition that it won’t change the running order, and a team error does flip the positions, then natural justice demands that the order is restored, because that honours the agreement."

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Norris denies existence of Papaya Rules

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