The future of McLaren’s papaya rules: Are ‘consequences’ now out of the window?

McLaren is expected to continue with its papaya regulations into the final six rounds of the championship, after all that’s simply don’t crash into your teammate, but the consequences are now out of the window.

That, Ted Kravitz surmises, will the outcome of Sunday’s first lap contact at the Singapore Grand Prix between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

McLaren are trying to be ‘too fair’

On a day when McLaren celebrated winning the Constructors’ Championship, the teammates had a flashpoint in their championship battle when Norris tagged Piastri at Turn 3 on the opening lap.

Piastri, who had started third with Norris fifth on the grid, fell behind his teammate and was fuming that McLaren refused to intervene.

The teammates continued in the grand prix where they ran third and fourth to the chequered flag with Norris taking three points out of Piastri’s lead to reduce it to 22 points with six rounds remaining.

Six rounds in which McLaren may have to deal with an all-out battle between its two drivers as they fight for a first World title.

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Kravitz reckons McLaren will continue to push the papaya narrative as it simply means don’t crash into your teammate, but should it happen, there won’t be any consequences such as team orders to give track position to the aggrieved party.

“What Oscar,” the pit lane reporter said on the Sky Sports The F1 Show podcast, “is saying is that the agreement was that if someone does break the papaya rules, that will be remedied by the team on track, and that the other person will get to go in front of the person who broke the papaya rules.

“And that did not happen.”

He added: “I think this is going to tip them into actually having to abandon, not the papaya rules, which just say ‘don’t crash into each other’, but the consequences that happen after that.

“I think now they’re just going to have to leave that alone.”

But while podcast host Simon Lazenby said he believes the McLaren rules were “well intentioned”, they created “their own set of issues and contradictions”.

McLaren has stumbled into that by trying to be too fair, claims three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick.
“I think McLaren are almost trying to be too fair,” she said. “All the time.

“They’re trying so hard to keep it equal between the pair of them that that’s what’s caused this kind of situation where Oscar, and I can’t actually blame him, to be honest for it, for on the radio making these calls to try to get the position back because ou’ve got to play the system, you’ve got to work with everything you’ve got.

“And he knows there’s a system in place, and Oscar smart, very smart in the car, and he’ll know, ‘if I can play the system to work for me, that’s potentially more points I can get.’ So he’s using the situation he’s in.

“I think he’ll look back at it and move on and not think too much of it. But at the same time, they’re almost trying to be fair and they’ve created this sort of situation that seems almost, some people think is biased one way or the other.

“What I want to see now is the rules put to the side. Obviously, they can’t be taking each other out, but I cannot wait to see them go wheel-to-wheel. Now, the potential situation allows for that.

“They say that it’s allowed for that the whole year through, but equally, it hasn’t been crunch point in the season with the championship. But now it’s going to get to crunch point and we’re going to get to the last few races and they are going to be wheel-to-wheel for a championship. I’m excited to watch that. And I’m excited to see how that falls into place.”

McLaren has promised the drivers a full review of Singapore.

“Our review needs to be very detailed, very analytical,” McLaren team principal Stella said at the Marina Bay circuit.

“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.”

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