OPINION: McLaren’s commitment to ‘fairness’ between drivers has undermined their 2025 successes
- Maham Mir
- 5 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Written by Maham Mir, Edited by Dhara Dave
McLaren spent much of 2025 maintaining fair racing between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, implemented through ‘Papaya Rules’. These rules and repercussions have not only swung the door wide open for Max Verstappen, but have also encouraged pressing concerns about their driver management style that I believe overshadow each driver’s individual successes.
The penultimate race of 2025 was McLaren’s first opportunity to have a World Drivers’ Champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008, and be double championship winners since 1998. Yet it all fell apart on Lap 7 of the Qatar Grand Prix, when McLaren, determined to avoid splitting strategies between their drivers, compromised both their drivers’ races in the name of ‘fairness’.
In a season where McLaren have won the World Constructors’ Championship and produced the outright fastest car for a majority of the rounds, it should be no surprise that they’ve dominated headlines.
However, not all of the media attention has been positive, and it is McLaren’s way of handling their drivers which has repeatedly come up for debate, as seen in Qatar recently.
McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown has committed to having “two number ones” in his championship-contending drivers of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Following up on this, Brown stated: “That’s not how we go racing”, when discussing the possibility of having to choose one driver to back in the battle.
In fact, Brown has gone to the extent of suggesting: “If 2007 happens again, I'd rather have that outcome than any other that involves playing favourites - we won't do it."
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella doubled down on this following the Qatar Grand Prix, stating: "In terms of adapting the way we go racing, we just want to always keep the options open for both drivers. They're both in condition to win the championship.”
Yet, despite this public and vocal commitment to letting their two drivers, and two of the main championship contenders this season, race each other fairly, there has been more than one instance of team orders, such as ‘papaya rules’ coming to play.
‘Papaya rules’ consists of three different components: keeping the racing between the teammates clean, not hitting your teammate, and the team’s commitment to keeping things fair between their two number one drivers.
It is this third and final characteristic which has caused much controversy throughout 2025.
The commitment to ‘fairness’ through ‘papaya rules’ and the repercussions faced by Norris have not just allowed Max Verstappen back into the championship battle; I think it has also raised the question that perhaps McLaren’s team decisions have undermined the many successes of their drivers this year.
Both drivers, Norris in his sixth season and Piastri in his third, are enjoying their most triumphant seasons so far with seven wins apiece. However, their success has not been enough to discourage outside voices from raising concerns.
These outside voices include fans of Norris and Piastri alike, who claim the championship is being ‘manipulated’ to favour the opposite garage, either via upgrades on the car or preference in strategy. This is despite Piastri’s recent interview, where he revealed: “In terms of the equipment we’ve had this year, it’s been identical.”
The trajectory between the two championship hopefuls this season has been at odds. For Norris, who started the season with a controlled win in Australia, things did not follow a smooth progression as he conceded the championship lead to his teammate in Saudi Arabia, the fourth round of the 2025 championship.
As Piastri continued to extend his lead at the front, Norris’ performance continued to fluctuate with moments of undisputed success, such as Monaco, quickly followed by devastating lows such as Zandvoort.
The gap between the two, reaching its peak of 34 points after Norris’ DNF in Zandvoort, told the story up until that point. However, like many things in Formula One, the story of the championship has been anything but simple.
At the Italian Grand Prix in 2025, McLaren’s intervention sought to reverse the order the drivers were in after a slow pitstop saw Norris effectively undercut by his own teammate. This was despite Norris confirming on his radio that he did not want this to be the case after his pitstop.
In this instance, instead of focusing on the pace of the McLaren and their attempts to keep up with the Red Bull at the front, focus was dominated on McLaren’s pit-wall and their intervention to right a team wrong on-track.
A similar series of events followed an entanglement on Lap 1 of the Singapore Grand Prix in 2025. As Norris attempted to avoid making contact with Verstappen and successfully got past his teammate, the two drivers made contact, which Piastri was vocally unhappy about on the radio.
Despite the stewards viewing the incident as nothing more than an opening lap incident, something that has become a characteristic of F1’s original night race, McLaren yet again intervened by later issuing “repercussions” for Norris.
As the subject of headlines yet again, Norris came into focus not for finishing third, or battling with Verstappen for P2 in the closing stages, but instead for making, in the view of some, an overly ambitious move on his teammate. This view was reinforced by Brown and Stella’s comments in the media run-up to the United States Grand Prix, as well as by Norris, who stated: “Things are reviewed, and there are and will be repercussions for me until the end of the season.
“It's not like I've got away with anything, but it was also an incident that, let's say, was small and there was potential to try and avoid it.”
Ultimately, in COTA, after an incident in the sprint that saw both Piastri and Norris retire before the end of Lap 1, focus turned to the team’s decision to remove Norris’ aforementioned repercussions.
While for some this decision did not go far enough to level the playing field, attention was once again drawn away from Norris’ impressive drive to P2 and his collection of crucial world championship points. Instead, it was directed to McLaren’s handling of these “repercussions” between their drivers.
Norris, unlike the fluctuation at the beginning of the season, has settled into the MCL39 and delivered consistently since his DNF in Zandvoort. Having retaken the championship lead, following a dominant drive in Mexico City and a picture-perfect weekend in São Paulo, Norris fans were hoping for a smooth progression for the driver’s maiden title.
However, things are once again rarely so straightforward as the Qatar Grand Prix proved. The ill-thought-out strategy call in Qatar became the most recent, and perhaps the most egregious, incident of McLaren’s drivers being forced to pay the price for McLaren’s team decisions to maintain fairness between both drivers.
With Pirelli’s 25-lap mandatory limit implemented for 2025’s penultimate race, an early Safety Car caused by Nico Hülkenberg’s retirement on Lap 7 provided the perfect opportunity for an early pitstop. Unlike the rest of the field, McLaren chose to gamble and stay out on track instead of utilising the opportunity for a cheap pitstop.
Once again, ‘papaya rules’ and the discussion of ‘fairness’ dominated as the team decided to maintain the order and avoid splitting strategies to eradicate any discussions of favouritism.
Brown and Stella both expressed their disappointment with the situation after the end of the race and rued the missed opportunity for the race win.
Stella, speaking to the media, stated: “When you are the lead car, you don't know exactly what the others are going to do. There could have been a loss for Lando [Norris] in pitting, in case we were pitting both cars with the double stack, but effectively, the main reason was related to not expecting everyone else to pit.”
In this situation, McLaren’s illogical strategy decision took attention away from Piastri’s impeccable return to form after weeks of disappointing results and the fact that Norris had the opportunity to clinch his maiden title. On an evening that could have been one of celebration, for either a dominant race win or even a maiden title, McLaren’s decisions left them with a handle of disappointment.
With the Australian driver having now conceded P2 in the standings to Verstappen, certain Piastri fans have expressed how the situation would be entirely different had these situations of “papaya rules” not been adhered to. For example, when citing the Monza incident, it’s clear that the gap at the front would be reduced had the Australian not been asked to cover for the team’s slow pitstop with Norris.
As Norris continues to climb to new heights and Piastri’s chances of a maiden title look slim compared to Norris’ advantage, these discussions about McLaren’s driver management have become more heated and cutting.
By inventing new rules and attempting a one-size-fits-all approach to racing between teammates, thereby allowing Verstappen an opportunity to catch up in the standings, I do believe that McLaren’s team decisions have undermined and overshadowed the success of their drivers in 2025.
Throughout the course of the season, McLaren’s management decisions and their effects on the track have turned the attention away from the drives itself and towards the potential “manufacturing” of the championship.
Regardless of McLaren’s intentions to go racing with fairness for both Norris and Piastri, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
In making the PR-friendly team spirit the focus — for all the wrong reasons — the development of not only their car but the handling of the championship by strategy calls has almost been eclipsed.
With the championship to be decided in Abu Dhabi between the two McLaren drivers and Verstappen, it is clear to see that McLaren’s management approach will be up for discussion for quite some time to come — especially if Verstappen manages a repeat of 2007.
