Oscar Piastri’s win adds further complications to McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’ enforcement

A McLaren crossed the finish line first to take victory at the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix — though it was perhaps not the driver we would have expected after a glance at the World Driver Championship standings.

Instead, the driver that launched his team ahead of Red Bull in the WCC was Oscar Piastri – mere days after McLaren admitted its so-called “papaya rules” would now begin favouring teammate Lando Norris.

Oscar Piastri’s win complicates McLaren’s updated “papaya rules”

The final moments of Saturday’s Q1 qualifying session seemed to promise fascinating Sunday drama, as confusion over a yellow flag saw Lando Norris abort his flying lap and qualify a lowly 17th.

Teammate Oscar Piastri, meanwhile, secured a comfortable front-row start from the second-place position at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

While the starting order promised to complicate Norris’ pursuit of Max Verstappen in the World Drivers’ Championship, it also complicated an intra-McLaren battle between drivers that has been labeled as “papaya rules.”

In effect, “papaya rules” refer to McLaren’s rules of engagement between drivers. The expectation has originally been that the teammates would race each other with respect, that one driver may be expected to yield to his teammate should that teammate be in hot pursuit of a podium or victory — but that, ultimately, both drivers remained of equal priority in the eyes of the team.

But McLaren’s shockingly effective mid-season upgrades have transformed the team from one overjoyed by the chance to nab a podium to one anxious as the World and Drivers’ Championships become a legitimate possibility. And after a poor start at the Italian Grand Prix saw Norris lose out on the start to his teammate, McLaren revised its ground rules.

After Monza, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella stated, “ We [will] bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles.”

Qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, though, proved to instantly complicate that bias — and in the race itself, the tables completely turned.

Understanding papaya rules:

👉 ‘Papaya rules’ explained: What are McLaren instructing their drivers with new phrase?

👉 Explained: How McLaren’s new papaya rules will change how Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri battle

On Lap 15 of 51, in a complete papaya rules role reversal, McLaren asked Lando Norris to hold up Sergio Perez in order to help teammate Piastri maintain his position at the lead of the race — with the hope that Piastri would be able to challenge for the lead.

Qualifying naturally threw a monkey wrench into McLaren’s plans to prioritise Norris over Piastri in the latter stage of the 2024 season, but the team’s decision to request that Norris stick his neck out to ensure his teammate could maintain his position highlights an indecision plaguing the McLaren operation.

The Hungarian Grand Prix exposed a fatal flaw in the McLaren team that has only been exacerbated since. At that event, the team gave Norris a preferred pit strategy that dropped race leader Oscar Piastri behind his teammate and forced the team to ask Norris to cede the lead.

But ‘ask’ is a severe overstatement. Norris’ race engineer Will Joseph was left to effectively beg his driver to consider the team, to re-establish the former running order, to remind Norris that one day, later in the championship, he might need Piastri’s full cooperation — and that denying Piastri his first win could compromise Norris later.

At the time, Norris asked, “And I am fighting for a world championship, am I not?”

The race at the Hungaroring should have been enough of an indication to McLaren that a clear running order was required to make its pursuit of two titles a much smoother prospect. The team declined to implement the Norris-favouring “papaya rules” for three more Grands Prix.

During the interim, McLaren CEO Zak Brown insisted that the team wouldn’t pick favourites, that it has two number-one drivers. Andrea Stella denied that the team would select a No. 1 driver, claiming that the team would prefer to approach racing with “fairness and integrity.” They both maintained that the situation in Hungary was an easy fix, that both drivers understood their roles.

These issues have been particularly apparent the more McLaren succeeds — but McLaren’s indecision has been a year-long problem. At the British Grand Prix, poor pit stops saw McLaren hand a 1-2 finish to Mercedes. And regularly throughout the season, the team has chosen to negotiate with drivers about strategy mid-race rather than make critical calls on the drivers’ behalf with the ample information available on pit wall.

Now, even the decision to implement Norris-biased papaya rules has fallen flat.

“I did my part today as a team player,” Norris told F1 TV after the race. “To come away with a first and fourth is not what we were expecting, but it put us on top of the constructors’.”

With seven Grands Prix remaining in 2024, there will be plenty of opportunities for Norris to reestablish his place at the head of the McLaren team, and perhaps to usurp Max Verstappen in the championship standings. But if McLaren wants that to happen, it’s high time to get definitive.

Read next: The lap-by-lap breakdown of a thrilling Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku