Why McLaren ‘reaffirmed’ papaya stance is good news for Oscar Piastri

Lando Norris may be the reigning champion, out to defend his title, but McLaren has made it clear that it will continue with its papaya regulations this season.

Based on “fairness, integrity, equal opportunities, sportsmanship”, team principal Andrea Stella says that after conversations during the pre-season, the Woking team has “confirmed and consolidated” its stance.

McLaren ‘reaffirm’ papaya regulations for F1 2026

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Last year, McLaren’s papaya regulations made headlines as Norris and Oscar Piastri went wheel-to-wheel for the Drivers’ Championship title, which would’ve been a first for both drivers.

Seemingly in a two-horse race before Red Bull’s late-season charge, Norris led the early running before Piastri surged ahead only to falter in the wake of McLaren’s controversial decision for him to give second place to Norris at the Italian Grand Prix after a slow pitstop from the team saw Norris rejoin the action behind his teammate.

Piastri, who had been 34 points ahead of Norris before Monza, stumbled as the Australian, who had won seven grands prix before Monza, didn’t record another win in the run to the line.

Overhauled by Norris and then Max Verstappen, Piastri dropped to third in the standings and later stated that “obviously what happened with the pitstops” played a role in his decline.

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The good news for Piastri is that, although Norris goes into the F1 2026 season as the defending champion, McLaren will continue with its papaya regulations, giving both drivers equal opportunity to fight for the title.

Team boss Stella says that while McLaren reviewed the policy, the Woking team felt there was nothing different that it would’ve done last year and will therefore continue as much.

“I can certainly say that,” he told PlanetF1.com and select media, “like with anything that we approach at McLaren will go through a thorough review process so that we can see where the opportunities to improve are.

“And this was the same for what we call the racing principles and the way we go racing and internal competition.

“We got quite a lot of feedback already during the season last year, we had conversations after the season, and we are having conversations pretty much as we speak now.

“And all these has led us to reaffirm, fundamentally the concepts of fairness, integrity, equal opportunities, sportsmanship. They are all fundamental for the team, for Lando and for Oscar.

“So they are reaffirmed. They are confirmed and consolidated, if anything.

“At the same time, we all acknowledge that the volume of work required, for instance, for the team, and to some extent even for the drivers related to internal competition, was important.

“Therefore any attempt we can make this going racing together just simpler, to some extent, will be welcome. It will be, in reality, a matter of fine-tuning, because once we reviewed what we have done in most of the cases, we said that’s exactly what we would still do again.

“But we have found a few opportunities in which we can streamline the way in which we operate collectively. Like I said, reaffirming, though, the fundamental principles that we have adopted in the past.”

McLaren’s decision is good news for Piastri as it means that even though Norris is the defending champion, the Australian will have an equal shot at the title.

Piastri recently spoke about McLaren’s racing ethos, telling Channel 9 that McLaren is constantly reviewing the in-house regulations to ensure that it plays fair with both drivers.

“It gets talked about a lot,” he said. “Behind the scenes it’s a much smaller discussion and a smaller deal than what it gets made out to be.

“But we’ve got our ways of going racing and it’s constantly evolving. We’ll do a review and we already have reviewed.

“Do we want to do things exactly the same? Do we want to change things a bit?

“We’ll get a handle on that fully before we go racing again.

“For me, the intentions were always in the right place and we’ll do some tweaking if we feel we need it, to try and make life a bit easier for ourselves.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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