Martin Brundle warns McLaren's title fight between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri is "doomed to fail" under "papaya rules"
Former Formula 1 driver and Sky Sports F1 analyst Martin Brundle has claimed that the intra-team battle at McLaren between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri 'in many respects is doomed to fail'.
Piastri and Norris are in an intense battle for their first drivers' championship titles. Heading into the United States Grand Prix, only 22 points separate the two drivers, with Piastri currently leading.
McLaren's "papaya rules" came under scrutiny once again at the Singapore Grand Prix after Norris went for a punchy move at the race start to take third position from his team-mate after starting from fifth. While he lunged for an opportunity that was there, Norris was forced to take evasive action after bumping into the rear of Max Verstappen's Red Bull, which led to contact with Piastri.
The Woking outfit has been firm on allowing both drivers to battle it out on track, but with the proviso that they keep it clean and do not crash into one another. McLaren opted not to enforce team orders during the race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, but while speaking to the media in Austin, Norris confirmed that there will be "repercussions until the end of the season" for him.
"100% of course [the gloves are off]. There is a championship to be won. They have got a fantastic car at McLaren, Max [Verstappen] is appearing in the rear-view mirrors quite quickly as well," Brundle explained in Austin.
"In many respects this set-up is doomed to fail. You have got two supremely competitive athletes working in a team environment. It's always going to go wrong, it's just a question of how the teams handle it."
2009 F1 champion Jenson Button added: “We love a good fight for the championship. In terms of performance, they’re both putting it out there, putting it on the line, which is great to see.
Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren
“Obviously, when the team gets involved in how hard you can push your team-mate and the repercussions of what happened at the last race, it gets a little bit complicated then, especially in house.”
Discussing the move in Singapore specifically, Brundle touched on what the repercussions could be for the British driver.
"Clearly whatever they are going to do will be inside the team and won’t affect the overall performance of the team against others.
"It’s slightly odd here because I think what McLaren are doing is actually for the sport very good. They can race from lights out to the chequered flag with one proviso: don’t run into each other. There are then obviously these consequences [if they do run into each other].
"If it hadn’t been Piastri alongside him, the team would have cheered those first few corners for Lando, they were actually brilliantly driven, he happened to just touch his team-mate.
"If we were in a development race I think it would be, for example Oscar would get the new parts first. Something like that. Or, if it’s a slipstream track where you need a slipstream in qualifying, Oscar would get priority on that.
"It will be that kind of intra-team thing that doesn’t hand advantage to other teams."
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Category: General Sports
