Piastri wants McLaren to avoid papaya rules "headaches" in 2026

McLaren Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri has backed the team's finetuned approach to letting the Australian and team-mate Lando Norris compete on an equal footing, hoping the squad can avoid "causing some headaches for ourselves that we didn't need".

Speaking at the 2026 Autosport Awards, Stella reaffirmed the team's commitment to its equal driver policy, although he suggested that after further talks with the drivers the execution of it would be "streamlined."

"There are many things in which you can find ways of doing things better,” the Italian told Autosport. “Or, if we can find a way to do the same, but in a simpler way, in a more streamlined way with less work for everyone, then that will be an important improvement for the future.”

Stella didn't provide specifics of how that would work, but there are at least two main examples over the course of the 2025 season where McLaren arguably made life more complicated for itself than necessary, and made further adjustments as a result.

One was the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, where it asked Piastri to let Norris past after a slow pitstop for the Briton, a decision which Piastri strongly disagreed with and one he admitted still lingered on his mind during a disastrous weekend in Baku. The other is slapping Norris on the wrist for making contact with Piastri in Singapore, only to then undo those private "repercussions" at the next event when Piastri was held more responsible for their sprint race clash in Austin.

Speaking to reporters, including Autosport, in a press conference this week, Piastri said streamlining the team's racing principles was a "wise decision" and hopes it will avoid some of the distractions from 2025.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: McLaren

"It will look different. As Andrea said, streamlining it is a wise decision to make," Piastri said about the team's policy. "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."

Piastri insisted he got a "fair shot" last year and says spending time at home in Australia has helped him reset and bounce back from losing out in the 2025 world championship fight.

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

He added: "It was nice to go back to Australia and spend some time with my family and just take a bit of a step away from F1 and racing. The support I had from being in the fight and the amount of comments I got about the way I go about things, was honestly nice to hear.

"There are a lot of lessons from last year. And yes, the ending was a bit painful, but I think you can treat that in one of two ways, either you can let it bring you down, or give you more confidence and motivation for the future. And I think with such a different rule set as well, that's been a very good avenue to channel any motivation that I gained over the off-season."