McLaren launch ‘papaya rules’ investigation with Oscar Piastri move under question

Andrea Stella says McLaren will review their “papaya rules” and the drivers’ actions after Lando Norris said he and Oscar Piastri almost “crashed” when the Aussie challenged him on the opening lap of the Italian Grand Prix.

Lining up first and second on the Monza grid with Norris on pole position, Stella warned his drivers to respect the “papaya rules” and not think of their team-mate as their rival as that’s “not productive”.

McLaren will review if drivers were ‘fully compliant or not’

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

The team-mates made a clean getaway off the line and through the Turn 1/2 chicane with Norris holding onto the lead ahead of Piastri, only for the Aussie to challenge him through the second chicane.

He not only edged ahead to take the lead, but in doing so opened the door for Charles Leclerc to then take second off Norris.

The Briton reckons had he braked “one metre later, we probably would have crashed. So something we’ll look at.”

Stella was asked in his post-race debrief with the media, including PlanetF1.com, whether Piastri had respected those papaya rules.

“We will have to review together with the drivers, look at the videos, understand their point of view, and then we will assess together whether they were fully compliant or not,” he replied.

“We will take the learning, if there is any learning that we need to take, and then we will adjust the ‘papaya rules’ such that they allow us to pursue in the best possible manner both the Constructors’ Championship and the Drivers’ Championship because we have to be now in condition to acknowledge that not only the Constructors’ Championship is possible.

“Even from a driver’s point of view, with the performance we have at the moment in the car, and some of the struggles that we see with Red Bull, it is definitely possible.

“So if we can achieve both as a team, we need to put the team in condition and Lando in condition to pursue both championships.”

The big numbers after the Italian Grand Prix

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ standings after the Italian Grand Prix

McLaren ‘did not consider’ position swap at Monza

Sunday’s result meant Piastri scored 18 points to Norris’ 15 as when all was said and done it was Leclerc, who used a one-stop strategy, who claimed the win ahead of the McLaren team-mates.

With championship leader Max Verstappen only scoring eight points on a troubled weekend for McLaren, Norris cut his lead in the standings to 62 points.

It could’ve been 59 had McLaren swapped the drivers around.

“We did not consider that,” Stella said. “We considered other ways during the race to make sure that Lando had his own opportunities, but we didn’t consider the swap because we were still willing to put as much pressure as possible on Leclerc.”

He does, however, concede it is something McLaren may do in future races as Norris is in the “best position” to challenge Verstappen for the World title.

“Both drivers are mathematically [in the title fight], but Lando is obviously in the best position from a numbers point of view,” he said.

“We are fighting Max Verstappen so I think if we want to give support to one driver, we definitely have to pick the one that is in the best position.

“And also, I think Lando, as you know, he’s been doing very well, like pole position in Zandvoort, pole position here. If anything with Lando, we need to adjust some little racing things which may help him, may help us capitalise on pole position like we had here in Monza.

“I think if we look at this first lap, while we review it together, we might see that there were a couple of things that we could have done more, slightly better.”

McLaren’s double podium saw them close the gap to Red Bull to just eight points in the Constructors’ Championship with eight races remaining.

Read next: Italian GP conclusions: Time for Norris to toughen up and Verstappen to resist temptation