McLaren have tied themselves in knots with their nicey-nicey Papaya rules: This is what Formula One insiders think they MUST do going forwards with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and how Max Verstappen can seize on Abu Dhabi dilemma

McLaren stand on the brink of the biggest achievement in their recent history, the most momentous since Lewis Hamilton won the drivers’ title for the British team in 2008.

They also teeter on the precipice of the most embarrassing own goal in Formula One history.

Should Max Verstappen win the world title in the finale in Abu Dhabi on Sunday from nowhere, or from precisely 104 points back after the Dutch Grand Prix on the last day of August, faces at McLaren would turn red not orange in embarrassment.

Since the race at Zandvoort, their story has been a catalogue of missteps, and it has led them to this sliding doors moment. The weddedness of team principal Andrea Stella to Papaya Rules, the nicey-nicey mantra of collegiality, has played its destructive part in the predicament.

The Italian’s almost pathological requirement to put the team first has tied them up in knots. Why, for example, did they order Oscar Piastri to cede his place to Lando Norris in Italy because the latter suffered a botched pit stop? Is that not a part of racing that you have to suck up?

The rearrangement attracted boos for Norris in Mexico and Brazil, the fans there believing strings were being pulled for him over his Australian team-mate.

Then, in reverse logic, Norris was told he would face ‘repercussions’ for accidentally crashing into Piastri in Singapore. The slate was rightly wiped clean after Piastri, again unintentionally, collided with Norris in the sprint race in Austin. 

Neither accident, in the truest sense of the word ‘accident’, was worthy of censure. But Papaya Rules got around McLaren necks.

And while Stella is trying to act out of the best motives, Papaya Rules, the governing philosophy of the team, curtail them, even if those fans in Mexico and Brazil, not to mention in Piastri’s native land, think they are applied favourably to Norris, an irony of sports given the mantra of even-handedness.

In the final analysis, you need to be ruthless to win the drivers’ title. As one former team principal with multiple winning drivers on his CV told me last week, the surest way of prevailing in the more lauded of the two championships, the constructors’ being of secondary interest to the wider world, is to have a clear No1 with a good wingman offering support.

That confidant may have been Jean Todt or Bernie Ecclestone or Christian Horner, or indeed someone else. I shall not reveal the identity of the informant from a private conversation, but all three are honest witnesses to the indisputable methodology of success.

Part of the bind McLaren are in is because their two men are almost equally matched – two No1s or two wingmen? Some think Norris faster. Others that Piastri is stronger, the better long-term bet for his resilience, his recent wobbles notwithstanding.

Both go into Abu Dhabi with a chance of taking their first title. Norris leads, Piastri is 16 points back but not to be discounted (he was superb in Qatar: pole in the sprint, victory in the sprint; pole for the grand prix, leading it and would surely have won it but for the strategy blunder while he was leading – how rightly damn angry he must be); yet Verstappen is now only 12 points adrift and carefree by comparison as the hunter latching on to chances he could barely have dreamed of.

Verstappen is the driver of the season, perhaps of any season and has nothing to lose. 

By the way, George Russell, of Mercedes, is the second-best driver of the year but his car has not carried him into the title fight and the vital questions about his temperament as a contender remain unexplored.

So what do McLaren do if Verstappen is winning this Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and Piastri is running third and Norris is lying fourth?

If they stay as they are, Verstappen wins the title. Then Papaya Rules come into their heads and they think they can’t change their two drivers around to give Norris the third place he needs to clinch the title because that would be asking Piastri to surrender his, surely only technical, chance in such circumstances of fate serving him an unexpected tilt at his own title glory?

They must then switch the pair, and so Norris would prevail on McLaren’s behalf?

We have seen McLaren suffer jitters recently. Disqualification from the Las Vegas Grand Prix for running an illegal plank, albeit by literally a hair’s breadth, was a risk they were invited into by Verstappen’s charge. 

Then, their inexplicable decision not to pit either of their drivers during a safety car phase in Qatar that granted the opportunity of a free stop which was exploited by the rest of the field. It was an obvious misjudgment worse than any tactical error in recent Formula One.

So, to Abu Dhabi, and the need for clear heads. McLaren, jubilant at winning their second successive constructors’ title as long ago as September, face their defining test. 

Norris has maths on his side but is jittery. Piastri has rediscovered his stride but needs a lot to go right. Verstappen remains the arch-disruptor, and, alarmingly, he is setting the agenda.