Oscar Piastri expects McLaren to continue with a policy of \u201cfull fairness\u201d and \u201cequality\u201d next season after teammate Lando Norris narrowly beat him to the title this year.<\/p>\n
Piastri led the championship for more days than any other driver in 2025, but ultimately finished third in the standings, 13 points behind Norris and 11 behind Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n
McLaren tried to make a point of giving both drivers equal opportunities throughout the season under a policy known as \u2018Papaya Rules\u2019, but was regularly accused of favoritism towards Norris.<\/p>\n
Piastri said he expected McLaren to continue to offer both drivers a level playing field heading into 2026 and said he will not change his approach just because his teammate is now the reigning champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that will change anything,\u201d he said after Sunday\u2019s season finale in Abu Dhabi. \u201cFor me, he\u2019s obviously had a great season this year and a deserving champion, but he\u2019s still Lando Norris. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s become Superman.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I don\u2019t think things will change with that. I\u2019m expecting full fairness from the team and equality going forward. I don\u2019t have any concerns that that will change at all. Clearly, Lando\u2019s had a very strong season this year, and ultimately did a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri said McLaren\u2019s efforts to give its drivers an equal shot at this year\u2019s title led to some awkward moments but ultimately helped both improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, it\u2019s not easy fighting for both the Constructors\u2019 Championship and the Drivers\u2019 Championship with two very evenly matched drivers,\u201d he said. \u201cBut ultimately, that\u2019s a problem we knew we were going to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, I think there\u2019s a lot of good things that come from that. Yes, there\u2019s difficult moments and tension at times, but I think both Lando and I have become better drivers from pushing each other to the limit. Sometimes that\u2019s been uncomfortable for everyone, but ultimately, yeah, it\u2019s been a good thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of discussions through the year, and I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll have discussions in the off-season about anything we want to do slightly differently for next year. But I think at the end of the day, they gave us both as good a chance as the team could have to fairly fight for a world championship, and that\u2019s all you can ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri expects McLaren to continue with a policy of \u201cfull fairness\u201d and \u201cequality\u201d next season after teammate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[2571,49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-334618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-auto-racing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334618","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=334618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}