{"id":219447,"date":"2025-10-17T09:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/219447\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:33:11","slug":"with-me-the-gap-would-be-bigger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/219447\/","title":{"rendered":"With me, the gap would be bigger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a> jokes that McLaren<\/a>\u2019s \u201cpapaya rules\u201d wouldn\u2019t be a problem if he were driving for the team as \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t be that close in points.\u201d He also suggested that if father Jos Verstappen<\/a> were on hand, he would find a way to deal with the debate as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahead of the United States Grand Prix<\/a>, McLaren\u2019s \u201cpapaya rules\u201d have once again come under scrutiny in the paddock. Following the first lap contact between Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> in Singapore, the team held what it described as \u201cgood talks,\u201d ultimately placing responsibility on Norris. The Briton admitted there would be \u201crepercussions,\u201d but declined to reveal what those were. Piastri, for his part, said he\u2019s convinced that McLaren does not favour Norris.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Verstappen: McLaren made things complicated for themselves\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the topic came up during Verstappen\u2019s Dutch media round in Austin, the world champion shared his view that McLaren made things unnecessarily complicated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you leave the door slightly open like Oscar did in Singapore, then you might end up in a situation like that,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cBut on the other hand, they kind of created this themselves by trying so hard to make everything equal with certain actions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Verstappen\u2019s view, it\u2019s impossible to manage an F1 title fight, and equally impossible to keep everything fair by intervening from the pit wall. \u201cYou know, a championship is never 100 percent fair when it comes to certain moments. Sometimes you get a bad pit stop, sometimes an engine breaks. You can\u2019t really balance that out, I think. They see it differently at McLaren, but this is my opinion. It\u2019s very difficult \u2013 and that\u2019s what sometimes leads to frustration.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Motorsport.com noted that Verstappen would never accept such interventions from the pit wall as a driver, the Dutchman laughed: \u201cNo, but then we probably wouldn\u2019t be that close in points anyway,\u201d he said, implying that his lead would be bigger when driving the McLaren car.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, automatically, it wouldn\u2019t be an issue. You just have to try and make sure you don\u2019t end up in a situation like that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Oscar <\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Verstappen jokes about Jos as McLaren team boss\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the press conference in Austin, Verstappen added that his father Jos would make a good team principal in his opinion. The comment raised eyebrows in the paddock, given the fiery personality \u2013 but Max insisted that isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s actually good for a lot of people to get a kick in the ass sometimes!\u201d Verstappen laughed. \u201cI think my dad would be a good team boss, also in F1. But he doesn\u2019t want that. He\u2019d be away from home too much. He\u2019s already been through that with me, and now he has his family as well. It\u2019s just not doable, and I think we shouldn\u2019t want that from our side. But I\u2019m 100% sure that he would do well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Motorsport.com jokingly suggested that Jos would quickly deal with McLaren\u2019s papaya rules, Verstappen laughed: \u201cYeah, there wouldn\u2019t be any rules at all! You\u2019d just have to put your right foot down! I know exactly what my dad is like.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Norris insists McLaren\u2019s approach is still better\u00a0<\/p>\n

For their part, the McLaren drivers believe that all focus on the papaya rules is blown out of proportion. Norris suggested it\u2019s more of a topic for outsiders than for people within the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that’s just your opinion on the outside. I think if I was on the outside, I would probably have a similar opinion and outlook on those things. But internally, it’s pretty simple. You think there’s this big amount of rules and all these things, but there’s not. There’s very little and it’s very simple. People like to talk about it a lot and bring it up a lot, but it’s quite a small amount of things, and it’s stuff that I think we always understand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Norris added that the perception of fans gets worse because drivers naturally question every decision over the radio. \u201cLike Andrea says a lot of the time, we still have the right to question it. We’re never going to just go around because I think it’s just a racing driver’s mind. From my side or Oscar’s side, we’re always going to question it, even if it is one-sided or not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand a lot of people have different opinions and think maybe other things are correct, but I still stand by the fact that I think and I’m confident that Andrea, Oscar and all of us are confident that our approach is better than other people’s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen jokes that McLaren\u2019s \u201cpapaya rules\u201d wouldn\u2019t be a problem if he were driving for the team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,98681,578,576,577,1885,105755,590,2190,82,105756,102377],"class_list":["post-219447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-max-verstappen-laughs-off-mclarenu2019s-papaya-rules-with-me","tag-mclaren","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-the-gap-would-be-bigger","tag-united-states-gp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}