Zak Brown revealed Lando Norris will only receive a “minor consequence” for colliding into his Formula 1 team-mate Oscar Piastri during the Singapore Grand Prix – and stressed it will all remain private.
Norris overtook Piastri for third on lap one at Marina Bay last time out, but did so by going down the inside of Turn 3 and banging wheels with his McLaren stablemate.
Piastri was annoyed and asked his team to revert the cars, but McLaren rejected the request and claimed it was a consequence of Norris avoiding the back of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.
The so-called ‘papaya rules’ subsequently came under question as it states the two must not crash into one another, with the pair fighting for the 2025 title amid a dominant campaign for McLaren.
It has led to an amicable fight between the pair and Piastri is at the top of the standings, 22 points ahead of second-placed Norris after they remained third and fourth at the finish in Singapore.
Although McLaren opted against team orders, Norris revealed on Thursday he had been held “accountable” and that there would be “repercussions” but Brown dismissed the punishment as anything of note.
Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
“We set out at the beginning of the year how we want to race and how we want to race each other,” said McLaren CEO Brown in Austin ahead of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
“The papaya rules, which everyone likes to talk about, is pretty much one rule, which is don’t touch each other and don’t run each other off the track.
“So it’s quite simple and it’s kind of taken on a bit of a life of its own and we just want to make sure that while they’re racing hard, they don’t come together. That puts them at risk, puts the team at risk.
“And so we agreed with them in the off-season how we would handle certain situations. It was a pretty minor incident, the start of a grand prix, it’s pretty chaotic, it was a damp track and it clearly wasn’t intentional.
“So we worked through it with them different consequences for different situations. It was a pretty minor situation, so it’s a pretty minor consequence.”
When asked what the “consequence” would be, Brown replied: “We don’t want to get into that.
“I think that’s private business between us. I know everyone’s interested to know, but both drivers are in a great place and we just want to set them up to continue to be able to race each other hard.
“It’s not easy having two number one drivers. We want to have both drivers competing for the championship and with that comes challenges that are more challenging than if you had a one and two driver, which we’ve seen over the years. We’re racers. We like to see them race, but we don’t like to see them touch each other.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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