{"id":57853,"date":"2025-08-09T22:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T22:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/57853\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T22:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T22:23:07","slug":"mclaren-told-to-avoid-this-old-tactic-in-oscar-piastri-vs-lando-norris-title-scrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/57853\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren told to avoid this old tactic in Oscar Piastri vs Lando Norris title scrap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny Herbert has warned McLaren against \u201cgetting involved with calls\u201d as its drivers battle for the F1 World Championship.<\/p>\n

He wants to see the best driver win the championship \u2014 independent of what the team has to say about it.<\/p>\n

McLaren advised to let the best driver win the F1 2025 championship<\/p>\n

As McLaren<\/a> began to contend for race wins in 2024, the team was faced with an awkward situation: Should it prioritize Lando Norris, who looked set to potentially challenge Max Verstappen for the World Drivers\u2019 Championship? Or should it let its drivers race it out fair and square?<\/p>\n

The team instituted something it called \u201cpapaya rules\u201d in response \u2014 basically, a mandate that its drivers race each other clean and fair.<\/p>\n

The goal of \u201cpapaya rules\u201d is less to prioritize one driver over another than it is to encourage its drivers to both compete at their peak. And so far in 2025, the approach has worked; with the exception of Lando Norris\u2019 Canadian Grand Prix wreck, the two drivers have brought out the best in one another \u2014 and the team has repeatedly declined to make demands of one driver at the request of the other.<\/p>\n

The result? A separation of just eight points and one victory between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

But will McLaren stick to its papaya rules guns as we enter the decisive point of the championship battle?<\/p>\n

More Formula 1 analysis from PlanetF1.com:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a08 of the ugliest looking liveries on F1 cars this century<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Ranked: All the F1 driver moves made for the F1 2025 season<\/a><\/p>\n

Former F1 driver turned pundit Johnny Herbert is all for letting the F1 2025 title battle come naturally down to the wire, without any interference or team orders from McLaren.<\/p>\n

In an F1 legends roundtable published by Formula1.com, several former drivers were asked about a variety of topics \u2014 including that they expect to see from the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0think the main focus will be the upgrades that have come from the majority of the teams, and that\u2019s going to stop because obviously focus shifts to next year,\u201d Herbert said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it\u2019s down to who doesn\u2019t make mistakes. If we go back to the championship, who\u2019s not going to make those mistakes?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mistakes are all part of the natural flow of racing, and we\u2019ve already seen the title momentum swing in different directions based on those mistakes.<\/p>\n

Those mistakes are natural \u2014 but there\u2019s one specific thing that Herbert is hoping to avoid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I don\u2019t want to see is McLaren getting involved with calls, as we saw a little bit last year,\u201d Herbert said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the drivers get on with it and the best driver will win. I don\u2019t want any, \u2018Turn 1, it\u2019s your race to win\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it won\u2019t [happen]. It should be a straight head-to-head.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far in 2025, McLaren has been great about allowing its drivers to race hard against one another, so long as they\u2019re doing so fairly. Whether or not that carries into the remainder of the season remains to be seen \u2014 but Herbert is speaking for plenty of F1 viewers when he points out his wish for clean, interference-free racing.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Ranked: Each McLaren driver\u2019s best F1 victory as new landmark reached<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Herbert has warned McLaren against \u201cgetting involved with calls\u201d as its drivers battle for the F1 World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,1613,38259,591,590,44,592,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-57853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-johnny-herbert","15":"tag-lando-norris","16":"tag-mclaren","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-oscar-piastri","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57853","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=57853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}