Cricket
Motorsport
Basketball test
League - Test
Combat Sports
Netball
Football
Should McLaren prioritise Piastri's championship chance?
Nicholas Quinlan • October 12th, 2025 4:12 pm
SEN Supercars commentator Cameron van den Dungen believes that McLaren should prioritise Oscar Piastri's Drivers' Championship over Lando Norris after claiming the constructor's championship in Singapore last week.
The battle between the two drivers who are currently 1st and 2nd in the Driver's Championship has gotten a lot hotter following the two making contact in last week's race.
On the first lap around Marina Bay Street Circuit, Norris collided into the back of Max Verstappen, which resulted in him hitting Piastri’s front left wheel.
Following that contact, the team ruled that Norris was not in breach of their papaya rules, which allow both drivers, according to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, to “race hard, race clean, (but) don't touch (one another)”.
If Norris was found in breach of the ‘papaya rules’, he would have been asked by McLaren to cede his position back to Piastri to ensure that the British driver had not gained an advantage from the collision.
Van den Dungen, who called the Singapore GP for F1 TrackTV, noted that while the damage on Norris’ front wing could have seen him mechanically black flag, he felt that if the stewards didn’t penalise him, then neither could the team much to Piastri's chagrin.
“There is one set of rules that we don’t have written out, but Oscar has told us himself that the only rule of papaya rules is do not hit your teammate,” van den Dungen said on SEN’s pre-race coverage of the Bathurst 1000.
“We understand that the ruling internally was that if you hit your teammate, you gained an advantage, you need to give that spot back.
“Lando bumped and run off the back of it and most likely should have got a mechanical black flag for the broken front wing.
With that decision, Piastri's camp, which includes manager Mark Webber, has become frustrated with the team's treatment of the Australian driver despite McLaren's best efforts to keep it fair between him and Norris.
“I know Mark Webber is aggrieved by the situation right now; it is not a happy home inside there,” van den Dungen explained.
“McLaren, I don’t believe that it is a deliberate Lando vs Oscar thing, I genuinely don’t believe it.
“I think they are doing what they believe to be right, it’s just what is right seems to be falling the way of Lando Norris more often than not.
“And by them trying to play fair, they are making no one happy, and so the challenge for Oscar is, six races remain, you’ve got a 22-point lead on your teammate. Max Verstappen is firing on all cylinders (and) is coming hard for this championship win.”
But with McLaren having secured the constructors' championship in Singapore, this might see a change to those papaya rules between Piastri and Norris, which would allow for the two to race one another.
And with Verstappen hot on the heels of the two McLarens, the esteemed motorsports broadcaster thinks that the team should prioritise Piastri’s championship chances.
“So, the whisper was that Zak Brown had a $50 million bonus on the team’s championship,” he added.
“From a Zak Brown perspective, everyone needed to be getting on and they needed that constructors' (championship).
“I don’t know that for a fact, but that’s the paddock discussion.
“So, you're Zak Brown, you’ve got your $50 million in the pocket…you’ve checked off your KPIs, you’d go let them race.
“But if you’re the team boss sitting there going, ‘Okay, Max Verstappen is our threat. We’ve got two dogs in the fight (for the Drivers’ Championship).’
“Do you go for the driver that is 22 points in front of Max or the guy closer to Max?
“I would be throwing all my eggs…taking the Australian hat off (and) just going purely hard nosed racer, I would be putting all my eggs in the Oscar Piastri basket right now.”
The F1 season will continue with the US Grand Prix in Austin, getting underway next week.
