Oscar Piastri issues response to daring Lando Norris overtake as ‘papaya rules’ explained

Oscar Piastri said his first-lap overtake on Lando Norris put him in a “race-winning position” for much of the Italian Grand Prix, before Ferrari’s strategy won the day.

Piastri started second behind his McLaren team-mate, but a daring move around the outside at the Roggia Chicane put him into the lead, while Norris was left in third behind eventual race winner Charles Leclerc in the early stages as he looked to regain speed.

Oscar Piastri responds to Lando Norris overtake as ‘papaya rules’ explained

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Piastri would go on to finish second behind Leclerc, with Norris taking third place as both drivers would make a dent into the World Championship lead of Max Verstappen on the day.

The Australian spoke of his disappointment at not earning a second race victory of the season, with Ferrari having converted Leclerc’s race into a one-stop strategy whereas both McLaren drivers pitted twice.

On that first-lap overtake, however, he felt that it was simply a good move on his part.

“I mean, I broke later and got around the outside, there wasn’t really much more to it than that,” Piastri told media including PlanetF1.com after the race.

“You know, we both got through unscathed and I knew once I hit the brakes, I kind of got ahead a bit, and I knew I was kind of entitled to stay on the outside.

“Ultimately, for 38 laps of that race it put me in a race-winning position. So, for me, it was just a good first lap.”

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As for Norris, he was on the receiving end of the first-lap overtake and ended the race behind his colleague on Sunday, with the instruction over team radio having been that the drivers were “free to race” under “papaya rules”, as alluded to by team principal Andrea Stella after qualifying.

When asked for an explanation of what ‘papaya rules’ means, Norris put it plainly: “Just don’t crash. That’s all.

“There was no contact, so he did a good job.”

As for what he would do differently in the same scenario moving forward, Norris was similarly forthright in his reasoning, but explained that simply stepping on the brakes later for the corner is not as straightforward as it appears.

“Just brake a bit later, simple as that,” Norris said, “but sometimes it’s easier said than done.

“I’d obviously braked on the limit and he gave me space. It was just about enough, I did my best to avoid anything else happening at the time.

“But if I brake two metres later, you don’t know and you can’t predict – two metres later, and it could easily have been a crash.

“So it’s a tough one, the easiest thing is just to brake way later and force him off and kind of treat it like no-one else.

“But, yeah, I don’t know. I obviously took it easy, I saw we had a massive gap behind, so maybe it was just a bit too much on the cautious side, and paid the price.”

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