Oscar Piastri has revealed McLaren have made changes to the much maligned papaya rules for the 2026 Formula 1 season after a number of controversies in 2025.
McLaren had a scenario F1 teams both dream and dread last season, with both its drivers in contention for the world championship.
Piastri and team-mate Lando Norris enjoyed a dominant season, McLaren winning 14 out of 25 races, both drivers taking seven wins each en-route to the team securing both titles.
Bit the ride to title glory was far from smooth for McLaren, implementing its “papaya rules” to govern intra-team racing, which became the source of controversies.
The team reached boiling point in Monza and Singapore, when Piastri came off worse as a result of poor pit strategy, and contact with Norris respectively.
However, entering 2026, Piastri has now confirmed changes to the rules of engagement, which will prevent further problems for the team arising.
“For me, as Andrea said, streamlining it is a wise decision to make,” he said to media at the launch of McLaren’s 2026 campaign.
“We’ve probably caused some headaches for ourselves that we didn’t need to at points last year.
“As a general principle, and a general way of going racing, it does bring a lot of positives with it.
“It’s just how do we refine that to try and keep it to just positives, basically.
“There is always a lot more made out about it than actually happens. T
“There are a lot of hypothetical situations, and a lot of people who think without knowing the complete inner workings. A lot of things appear differently from how they actually are.
“So yeah, 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.”
Oscar Piastri reflective following difficult 2025
Piastri cut a pragmatic tone when reflecting on his first title challenge, believing his title challenge was “fair”.
“Again, things could have been done better, situations could have been handled differently, but that is part of elite sport and part of Formula 1,” he said.
“You’re never going to get every decision right.
“You’re never going to make every single person happy, and that’s part of the unique nature of Formula 1, given it’s a team sport with an individual prize at the end as well.
“So yeah, I think I got a fair shot last year. We’re working on how we can improve things and make sure that we try to become stronger.”
READ MORE: Lando Norris ready to ‘accept’ potential change of power in F1 2026
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