Brown hits out at ‘shocking’ conspiracies McLaren favoured Norris over Piastri

Zak Brown has called out conspiracy theories that McLaren favoured Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri during their 2025 title fight, labelling the claims “shocking” and “uninformed”.

McLaren found itself at the centre of controversy last season as Norris and Piastri went wheel-to-wheel for the World title, the Briton coming out ahead as Piastri’s challenge faltered in the final third of the campaign.

Zak Brown rejects claims McLaren favoured Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri

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The Australian driver led the championship by 34 points after his seventh win of the season at the Dutch Grand Prix before momentum swung to Norris, starting at the Italian Grand Prix, when Piastri was ordered to give second place back to his teammate after McLaren botched Norris’ pit stop.

Two races later in Singapore, Piastri bemoaned McLaren not ordering Norris to give the position back when the Briton made contact through the first corner.

But while McLaren issued consequences for Norris, they were erased one race later when Piastri hit Norris in the Sprint in Austin in a multi-car crash.

Fans cried foul and claimed it was part of a McLaren conspiracy to favour Norris as he had not only been at McLaren longer but was British.

McLaren maintained throughout it all that it was sticking to its papaya regulations of being fair to both drivers and them being fair to one another.

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“I thought a lot of it was very inaccurate,” Brown told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets in Melbourne. “At the end of the day, we let both our drivers race, race hard, and we had two drivers that won seven races. It came down to the last race of the year with both with a chance of winning the championship. Quite proud of that.

“We were prepared for the consequence of someone not winning because we’re taking points off each other. But as a racing team, we’ll let both drivers race fairly equitably.

“Of course, we made mistakes along the way. They made mistakes along the way. That’s racing.

“So the conspiracy theories and the allegations that were made were so far wide of the mark.

“I’m very, very proud of how our team and our drivers just stayed focused and we achieved what we wanted to achieve. Would have liked to be first and second in the championship, but we won the Constructors’, won the Drivers’, both drivers, seven wins.

“Couldn’t be more proud of how they raced, but you can’t control people’s opinions at sport. People are going to have their views, but it is shocking at times how uninformed people are in their allegations of what they think we’re up to.”

Brown reckons more was made of McLaren’s rules after the team gave them a name at the 2024 Italian Grand Prix where Norris’ race engineer, Will Joseph, told him that he was free to race Piastri after falling behind but within “papaya rules”.

“I don’t think you’ll see anything differently,” said the McLaren CEO. “We refine our approach to race weekends every race weekend, whether that’s drivers or a set-up of cars, or just generally how we go racing.

“So I know we kind of gave it a name that one time on the radio, and I think had we not done that, it probably wouldn’t be a thing, because I think every racing team has rules on how their drivers should race, and ours are really no different than anyone else, other than we’re committed to having two drivers with equal opportunities to win.

“That’s maybe the only difference between us in some of the teams in pit lane, but I think the papaya rules are probably not much different to McLaren as it is any other team in the pit lane.”

The team’s rules could again be a hot topic this season as Brown expects Norris and Piastri will again both be in contention for the world title, Norris seeking to retain the crown and Piastri looking to take it away from his teammate.

Both drivers, Brown insists, will have equal opportunity at McLaren.

“I think they’re both very fired up,” declared the American. “Lando has his shoulders out, as you would expect, but he’s in great physical shape, great preparation for the season. So I think he wants to go for number two.

“Oscar equally so. I spent a lot of time with Oscar on the phone, because he was in Australia over the winter. And if you take a look at the leap he made from ’24 to ’25 it was outstanding. So if he’s done a fraction of that leap from ’25 to ’26, watch out.

“So I think as long as we can give both the guys a car that’s capable of winning the world championship, I think we got two drivers are going to be fighting for the world championship again.”

Additional reporting by Mat Coch

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