Brown insists McLaren ‘won’t change the way we race’ after ‘papaya rules’ criticism throughout 2025 season

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has said that the team won’t give in to criticism around their focus on fairness between their two drivers – a racing approach McLaren call ‘papaya rules’ – as he reflected on their 2025 performance.

The Woking outfit not only secured the Teams’ Championship for the second consecutive year, but Lando Norris also pipped Max Verstappen to become the team’s first Drivers’ Champion since 2008.

Although they wrapped up the Teams’ title with six rounds to go, there was a greater battle to crown Norris. He eventually beat his Red Bull rival by just two points, but it was his team mate Oscar Piastri who led the standings longer than any other driver.

McLaren have been consistently vocal about how they want to treat both Norris and Piastri equally, offering them the same opportunities to win races, but this has backfired on occasion. In Monza, for example, Norris suffered a slow pit stop and emerged behind his team mate who was running in P2. Piastri was then asked to let Norris through and obeyed, cutting his 34-point lead to 31 in the process.

Asked whether the pain of implementing that kind of instruction was ultimately worth it, Brown said: “We're definitely committed to giving both drivers equal opportunity to win the World Championship. Even when you win, on Monday, you talk about what you could have done differently or better.

“We're constantly evolving as a racing team. But the fundamentals of having two drivers that would give equal opportunity to win, that won't change.

“Do we look back and have lots of learnings?” Brown continued. “I remember when we finished first and second in Spain, our debrief on Monday was about eight things that were close calls that we could have done better.

“I think that’s the nature of a Formula 1 team – to always evaluate and go, “What could we have done differently, what could we have done better?” I think in sport you're going to win some, you're going to lose some.

“Of course, when you've made mistakes, you wish you hadn't, but that's just not realistic. I've yet to see any person or team in any sport have the perfect season. So, we're no different than that. But fundamentally, the way we go racing – that won’t change.”