Former F1 champion claims McLaren team order could cost them the title

Former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve has speculated that a clause in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri's McLaren contracts could be hamstringing the team coming into Abu Dhabi this weekend.

Both McLaren stars are still in the hunt for the championship heading into the last race of the season, but there are fears that Piastri could be asked to sacrifice his own position for Norris in the scenario that the Australian is effectively out of the running near the end of the race.

Villeneuve warned that if the drivers have an absolute equality clause written into their contracts, the team may be stuck with the system of attempted fairness dubbed 'papaya rules', to the detriment of the 'overall result'.

The phantom of papaya rules was in the background once again on Sunday when the team bungled a strategy call in Qatar to cost Piastri the race win and let Max Verstappen back into the title fight, although – as the team have been quick to point out – that had nothing to do with the mistake they made.

Villeneuve: I don't remember anything like this in F1

Speaking to CoinPoker, Villeneuve said: “To each their own, obviously Papaya Rules are detrimental to the overall result. If you want to win at all costs, if you want to be a winner, you cannot have papaya rules.

“I don't think Prost and Senna had that when they were teammates, nor when Hamilton and Alonso were teammates. It didn't work. Vettel and Webber? It didn't work. It’s the first time I see that kind of rule. I don’t ever remember anything like that in F1 before.

“Some championships were lost because there weren't any rules. That's happened. We had good battles. The papaya rules might well have a negative effect on the drivers' championship.

“We keep talking about the papaya rules, but we don't know what's in the drivers’ contracts. And that's the crux of it. If in their contracts it has to be 100 per cent balanced, well the team has to cope with that. Because they signed the contract early on, I don't think they expected it to be in this position where they would have to stick to it until the last race in the drivers’ championship.

“When you sign a contract, you can't imagine every scenario or outcome. You do what you think is best and at some point, one will be the clear leader, the other one won't be able to win the championship, so it won't matter anymore. But that is not what happened and they’re stuck with it.”

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