McLaren warned against ‘destroying’ Oscar Piastri with ‘papaya rules’ investigation underway

Ralf Schumacher has warned McLaren they could “destroy” Oscar Piastri if they ask him to back off from Lando Norris with Andrea Stella saying they’ll review their “papaya rules” after Monza.

Although it was Norris who started on pole position at the Italian Grand Prix, and made a good getaway off the line, he was not leading at the end of the first lap having been overtaken by Piastri .

Ralf Schumacher on the more ‘important question’ McLaren need to ask

Despite being reminded of McLaren’s “papaya rules” ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, Piastri challenged his team-mate through the second chicane on the opening lap, Norris claiming they would’ve “crashed” had he braked “one metre later”.

The Aussie’s action put McLaren in a bit of a predicament with pundits questioning whether they would issue team orders in favour of Norris given he’s P2 in the Drivers’ standings, give him a better strategy, or let the drivers fight it out amongst themselves.

They went with the latter and told him he could race Piastri but that “papaya rules” must be adhered to. Norris wasn’t able to get close enough to challenge Piastri and finished behind his team-mate in third place.

“What can you say?” Schumacher, a former F1 driver turned pundit, told Sky Deutschland.

“Oscar was fast. It was harsh of Oscar, but he would probably have been breathing down his neck the whole time.

“The more important question is whether the two of them pushed each other so hard that they managed to get out of the one-stop. That would have to be clarified within the team.”

McLaren two-stopped both drivers as they suffered high tyre wear while Charles Leclerc came through on a one-stop strategy to win Ferrari’s home race.

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Ralf Schumacher warns against ‘destroying’ Oscar Piastri

But while McLaren opted not to issue team orders at Monza, it’s something team boss Andrea Stella admits he may have to do in the future.

And it will be in Norris’ favour as he is in the “best position” to challenge Verstappen. The Briton is 62 points behind the Red Bull driver while Piastri is a further 44 points off the pace.

“Both drivers are mathematically [in the title fight], but Lando is obviously in the best position from a numbers point of view,” Stella told the media, including PlanetF1.com, at Monza.

“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.”

It’s a position Schumacher doesn’t envy Stella for being in.

“As long as the two are so close together, I would have a hard time as team boss,” he admitted. “You can destroy a driver to some extent if you tell him that he has to back off.”

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