McLaren’s controversial ‘papaya rules’ changed for 2026 to avoid “headaches”

McLaren’s controversial ‘papaya rules’ will be altered for the 2026 Formula 1 season, according to Oscar Piastri, after the team “caused some headaches” for itself last year.

McLaren tried to manage the tense title battle between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri last year with ‘papaya rules’, though this only stirred up controversy later in the season.

At the Italian Grand Prix, Piastri was told to move aside for Norris after the eventual champion suffered a slow pitstop, which left the Australian fuming.

A collision between the pair triggered by Norris at Singapore was responded to by a further alteration of the ‘papaya rules’ for the Briton, for those to be thrown out after Piastri tagged his team-mate at Austin.

The controversy around ‘papaya rules’ even led to the Australian parliament asking whether or not Piastria was being treated fairly by McLaren.

Piastri: More made about ‘papaya rules’ than happened

In a media event, attended by Crash.net, Piastri said ‘papaya rules’ do “bring a lot of positives”, but revealed that there will be changes to the process for 2026.

“It will look different,” he began. “Streamlining it is a wise decision to make.

“We probably caused some headaches for ourselves that we didn't need to at points last year.

“As a general principle and a general kind of way of going racing, it does bring a lot of positives with it, and it's just about how do we refine that to try and keep it to just positives, basically.

“There was always a lot more made about it than actually happens and a lot of people that kind of think without knowing the complete inner workings, a lot of things appear differently to how they actually are.

“[There will be] some tweaks for sure this year, but I think it's pretty clear that we still want to go racing as much as a team as we can.”

Asked if he felt he was given an equal shot at the title to Norris, Piastri said he did, but “certain things could have been done better”.

“Yes, I think I got a fair shot last year and I'm expecting that to stay exactly the same.

“That's definitely not to say that certain things could have been done better last year.

“I think that was probably clear for everyone watching. But for me, at no point were there any bad intentions, or any times I questioned the intentions of things.”