Lando Norris has a chance at the championship this season. It seems the team should be fully focused on supporting him, but no – McLaren is playing by the ‘papaya rules’, the essence of which was explained by McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown in an interview with Sky Sport F1.
Zac Brown: “Before the race we discussed that the riders should line up behind each other at the start and make sure that no one can pass them. And that’s what happened. But at the same time Oscar attacked aggressively, which apparently surprised Lando. He decided that he should just line up in a double team and see if he can increase the lead. We discuss all this within the team.
The “Papaya rules” are as follows: when you fight with a partner, you can fight hard, but always clean, avoiding contact. Oscar’s attack was aggressive, we were a bit nervous on the pit wall, but basically you just have to respect your teammate.
Lando came out of that corner in vain; it would have been great if they had stayed together longer. They didn’t touch, it was an aggressive but clean maneuver.
At McLaren we don’t favour one driver over the other. They both want to win. We have two number one numbers in the team, that’s always been the McLaren way, although it can be difficult to manage – think of Senna and Prost.
They get along well, they race cleanly, and it’s a philosophical question: are you a one-car team or a two-car team? The easiest thing would have been for Lando to just take the lead, then we wouldn’t have had to make difficult decisions on the pit wall, but Andrea Stella and I played by our rules.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
