Johnny Herbert says McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’ perception fed the Monza boos for Lando Norris
Lando Norris walked onto the Monza rostrum to a chorus of mixed feelings — cheers from the papaya end, whistles from a few thousand in red — and Johnny Herbert thinks he knows why.
The former F1 racer and steward believes the reaction wasn’t just about Norris finishing second behind a dominant Max Verstappen. It was about the optics. McLaren’s hard-to-pin-down “rules of engagement” between Norris and Oscar Piastri, the so‑called “papaya rules,” appeared to shape the race — and, with it, the mood.
“I’m sure there was a little bit of the papaya rules that came into play with McLaren, which prompted the booing,” Herbert said, reflecting on the Italian Grand Prix podium.
The flashpoint was straightforward enough. Verstappen lit up Monza: pole with a new lap record, an early concession of the lead after cutting the chicane at the start as instructed, and then the inevitable repass before he checked out. The Red Bull driver was untouchable all afternoon.
Behind him, McLaren nearly tripped over themselves. Norris had green-lit the call to pit Piastri first to cover Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. Then came a slow stop for Norris, and suddenly he emerged behind his teammate. McLaren intervened and told Piastri to swap back the positions. He did, and Norris banked P2.
That, more than anything, is what grated with parts of the Monza crowd. Team orders aren’t new here — Ferrari practically wrote the book — but this wasn’t Ferrari, and it wasn’t for a win. It looked like choreography.
Andrea Stella insisted there was nothing cynical about it, only consistency. The McLaren team principal said the call was made to restore the order that existed before the stops and then let them race. “We thought it was absolutely the right thing to go back to the situation pre-existing at the pit stop, and then let the guys race,” Stella explained. In other words: fairness over fortune.
And yet the phrase “papaya rules” carries baggage. It became shorthand last season for McLaren’s in‑house code on how Norris and Piastri fight each other, a mixture of principles, priorities and what’s acceptable when elbows come out at 320 km/h. But Norris batted away the label after Monza.
“There are no papaya rules anymore,” he told DAZN. “We’ve never had them.” Asked if there was some other document, he conceded there is — not even a page long — and it basically says one word: fair. Fair for him, fair for Piastri. No past favors owed, no tally kept.
That nuance gets lost in a grandstand debate. Fans saw Piastri move aside and drew their own conclusions. Norris, who’s been one of the most popular drivers at every track this year, wore a few boos he probably didn’t deserve.
Verstappen, meanwhile, got a rare love letter from the tifosi. Herbert wasn’t surprised. “There’s a hell of a lot of respect for what Max does in the cockpit,” he said. “Everybody can get wowed by it.” And if you sense a subtext, you’re right. Would the fans in red like to see Verstappen in a Ferrari one day? “I’m sure they would,” Herbert added, voicing the fantasy many in Italy share.
McLaren will shrug and move on with a healthy haul from Monza and no points spilled between their drivers. But the episode does underline the tightrope they’re walking. Norris is the spearhead; Piastri is quick enough to complicate Sundays; and the team’s promise of “fair” only works if it feels fair from the outside too. Otherwise, one order becomes a narrative, and narratives linger.
Next time McLaren find their cars in each other’s air at the sharp end, the radio messages will be parsed, the timing screens combed, and the boos — or cheers — will follow accordingly. That’s the tax for fighting at the front in 2025.
