McLaren to keep ‘Papaya rules’ intact after Norris’ title: “Equal opportunity won’t change”
McLaren isn’t about to ditch its driver democracy now that it’s climbed back to the top. Fresh off Lando Norris’ first Formula 1 title in 2025, Zak Brown says the team will carry its “Papaya rules” into the 2026 reset — even if it means making life a little harder when the championship fight gets tight.
“We’re definitely committed to giving both drivers equal opportunity to win the world championship,” the McLaren Racing CEO told reporters in Abu Dhabi. “The fundamentals of having two drivers that we give equal opportunity to win, that won’t change.”
That philosophy was poked and prodded plenty through 2025. McLaren built its title push around parity between Norris and Oscar Piastri — equal equipment, equal strategy windows, no predetermined No.1. It sounded noble early on; it looked brave when Max Verstappen started reeling them in late in the year. Brown had even said the team would accept losing the Drivers’ crown to a rival rather than instruct one driver to bow out while both were still alive in the fight.
In the end, they didn’t have to test it to the breaking point. Norris emerged as World Champion, with Piastri playing his part in McLaren’s rise back to the sharp end. But the scrutiny never really went away, and it won’t in 2026, when everything gets thrown in the air again.
The stakes of the upcoming rules overhaul don’t seem to faze Brown. “We’re constantly evolving as a racing team, but… the way we go racing, that won’t change,” he said. “Do we look back and have lots of learnings? I remember when we finished first and second in Spain, our debrief on Monday had about eight things that were close calls that we could have done better.”
It’s a peek behind the curtain of how McLaren handled a season that was anything but straightforward. The team banked wins and a title, but never pretended it was flawless. “You’re going to win some, you’re going to lose some,” Brown added. “Of course, when you’ve made mistakes, you wish you hadn’t, but that’s just not realistic. I’ve yet to see any person or team in any sport have the perfect season.”
That honesty will be tested by the new formula. The 2026 regulations promise leaner aero, revised energy management and all the uncertainty that comes with a reset. There’s no guarantee McLaren’s 2025 form carries over, which makes the equal-treatment call even bolder — or, depending on your point of view, even more necessary. Two drivers fully bought in, with full access to the tools, gives you twice the shots when the competitive order is shuffling.
It’s also become part of McLaren’s identity. “Papaya rules” started as a radio shorthand and turned into a credo. No hard team orders unless survival demands it. No slow-walking one side of the garage to buoy the other. The flipside, of course, is the headache: on days when milliseconds and track position mean everything — think safety car restarts, pit priority, undercut windows — managing two equal claims is a high-wire act.
That Spain reference tells you how fine the margins were even on McLaren’s best days. A one-two, followed by a list of “eight” near-misses in the debrief, is the sort of detail that keeps strategy chiefs up at night and keeps drivers believing they’re not being short-changed. It also explains why rivals kept asking whether McLaren would blink first when Verstappen loomed large.
They didn’t. And with a championship in hand for Norris, there’s little incentive to change a culture that’s helped foster one of the grid’s most potent line-ups. Piastri, still only in the early chapters of his F1 story, has been quick enough often enough to demand the kind of respect these “rules” afford him. Norris, now a champion, doesn’t need protecting. He needs a fast car and a team that stays out of its own way.
Brown’s message suggests McLaren believes it can do both — maintain parity and stay sharp on the pit wall when chaos hits. Easy to say in December. Harder to live by when we get the first 2026 safety car at exactly the wrong time.
Still, that’s the choice McLaren has made. The team that turned fairness into a competitive weapon isn’t about to trade it in now. If the field compresses as expected, keeping both Norris and Piastri in the title hunt might be the only sensible option. And if it becomes messy? Well, that’s racing — and, as Brown keeps reminding everyone, there’s no such thing as a perfect season. Only the way you choose to run one.
