Oscar Piastri says McLaren could \u201ctweak\u201d its papaya rules ahead of the F1 2026 season to \u201cmake life a bit easier for ourselves\u201d after a few controversial moments last season.<\/p>\n
The McLaren drivers went head-to-head for the title last season, the McLaren MCL39 in a league of its own in the early half of the championship.<\/p>\n
Could McLaren chanage its papaya regulations in F1 2026?<\/p>\n
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to your favourites list for news you can trust<\/p>\n It, however, wasn\u2019t all smooth sailing.<\/p>\n Standing by its papaya rules, the internal guidelines aimed at ensuring clean and fair racing between their drivers, McLaren courted controversy at the Italian Grand Prix when Piastri was ordered to give second place to Lando Norris after a botched pit stop saw the Briton fall behind his teammate on track.<\/p>\n Norris later faced internal consequences for clattering into Piastri<\/a> at the Singapore Grand Prix before those repercussions were dropped when Piastri collected Norris on the opening lap of the Sprint in Austin.<\/p>\n Several of McLaren\u2019s calls, though, led to claims from Piastri fans that McLaren was favouring Norris in the championship fight, a stance firmly denied by the Woking team.<\/p>\n Norris went on to overturn Piastri\u2019s lead in the Drivers\u2019 standings<\/a> to clinch his maiden title, while the Australian \u2013 who admitted Monza had an impact on his season \u2013 dropped to third, 13 points off the pace.<\/p>\n Lando Norris v Oscar Piastri: McLaren 2025 head-to-head scores<\/p>\n F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n The 24-year-old has revealed McLaren will discuss its papaya regulations before the beginning of the new season, and could even implement a few changes to it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gets talked about a lot,\u201d he told Channel 9.<\/p>\n \u201cBehind the scenes it\u2019s a much smaller discussion and a smaller deal than what it gets made out to be.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019ve got our ways of going racing and it\u2019s constantly evolving. We\u2019ll do a review and we already have reviewed.<\/p>\n \u201cDo we want to do things exactly the same? Do we want to change things a bit?<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll get a handle on that fully before we go racing again.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, the intentions were always in the right place and we\u2019ll do some tweaking if we feel we need it, to try and make life a bit easier for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n McLaren team principal Andrea Stella also confirmed to Sky Sports News that McLaren will have the conversations with an eye to reaffirming its policy of fairness for both drivers.<\/p>\n \u201cI can certainly say that like with anything else that we approach at McLaren, we go through a thorough process of review, such that we can see where the opportunities are to improve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd this was the same for what we call the racing principles and the way we go racing and internal competition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got quite a lot of feedback already during the season last year. We had conversations after the season. And we are having conversations pretty much as we speak now.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of these has led us to reaffirm fundamentally that the concepts of fairness, integrity, equal opportunities, sportsmanship, they are all fundamental for the team, for Lando and for Oscar. They are reaffirmed, they are confirmed and consolidated if anything.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time, we all acknowledge that the volume of work required for instance for the team and to some extent even for the drivers related to internal competition was important.<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, any attempt we can make to make this going racing together just simpler, to some extent, will be welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n