Oscar Piastri has voiced his \u201ctrust\u201d in McLaren\u2019s handling of the battle for the Formula 1 Drivers\u2019 title, after being ordered to allow team mate Lando Norris past at Monza.<\/p>\n
McLaren<\/a> sparked debate at the Italian Grand Prix<\/a> when instructing Piastri<\/a> to allow his title rival past for second place following a slow pit stop for Norris<\/a> \u2013 this after the latter had suggested Piastri stopped first to prevent an unlikely undercut from Charles Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prior to this weekend\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/a>, McLaren discussed their \u2018papaya rules\u2019 \u2013 the team’s code for their rules of engagement on track \u2013 with both drivers said to be \u201caligned\u201d on racing scenarios going forward.<\/p>\n \u201cNaturally, there have been thoughts, yes,\u201d said Piastri. \u201cWe\u2019ve had good discussions with the team.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it\u2019s a highly talked about moment, but we\u2019ve had a lot of discussions, have clarified a lot of things, and we know how we\u2019re going to go racing going forward, which is the most important thing. What\u2019s happened is done, and I\u2019m excited to go racing here.\u201d<\/p>\n To this point, McLaren have maintained a focus on sealing the Teams\u2019 Championship<\/a> for a second year running, an achievement which could be sealed this weekend<\/a> with a record-breaking seven events to go.<\/p>\n Pressed on whether he expects less interference from the pit wall after this consideration is out of the way, Piastri added: \u201cNot necessarily because of the Constructors\u2019 Championship.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think we\u2019ve had a lot of discussions about how we want to go racing and a lot of that is to stay for us, because ultimately, if we give out that information, then we become very easy targets to pick off because everyone knows what we\u2019re going to do. That\u2019s all very aligned with all of us, but stays in-house.\u201d<\/p>\n While unwilling to detail wider scenarios, points-leader Piastri did confirm an expectation that papaya rules would be invoked should the McLaren pairing find themselves in \u201cexactly the same scenario\u201d.<\/p>\n Conceding a belief that he didn\u2019t deserve to finish higher than third given his pace across the weekend, Piastri had an element of sympathy for his team, highlighting how the on-track scenario put McLaren between a rock and a hard place.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we had of done the opposite thing, then you\u2019d have had the opposite half of the fans saying that it was wrong. Ultimately, there\u2019s no correct decision in that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAm I surprised? Not really. Obviously, it\u2019s a big moment from the race and I feel like a lot of fans are quite quick to jump on things that are deemed controversial. I\u2019m not that surprised, but I do think that we have enough freedom to control our own destiny in the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n Offering his take on the situation later in the day, and whether there have been any discussions regarding what would happen in a decisive championship situation, Norris added: \u201cWe discuss all of these things. It\u2019s not something we need to finalise now. Of course, it was a talking point. It was all we ever heard from every person doing our interviews [at Monza].<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something that was brought up, it\u2019s something we all spoke about as a team, we all have a very good understanding of, and all accept it. We\u2019re happy. We\u2019ll continue working the way we want, and that\u2019s what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri has voiced his \u201ctrust\u201d in McLaren\u2019s handling of the battle for the Formula 1 Drivers\u2019 title,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-152440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}