Zak Brown’s ‘flawed’ McLaren F1 plan exposed

Zak Brown’s scheme to hand one of his McLaren drivers their first championship ‘has plenty of flaws’ according to an F1 insider.

McLaren have become infamous for their ‘papaya rules’ that lay out the terms that both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri must adhere to when battling against each other out on track.

The most vital element of those rules is that the two McLarens never make contact, so when Norris collided with the side of Piastri’s MCL39 at last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, the team’s ‘master plan’ was left in tatters.

"So, are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way or, what's the go there," Piastri queried over team radio, but McLaren were unable to give him an answer he was satisfied with.

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The Australian racer still leads the drivers' championship despite finishing one place behind Norris, who took the final step on the podium in Singapore, but with the constructors' trophy now claimed, Piastri will surely let loose and not concern himself with McLaren's rules in the final six rounds of the season.

In a Singapore GP review with Peter Windsor on the Cameron Cc: YouTube channel, the F1 journalist and former team manager stated that Norris' move was payback for losing a race win to Piastri last season and that Brown's 'master plan' of how to handle the duo was deeply flawed.

“If there's a gloves off moment between Oscar and Lando it was this race and if there was a revelation of Zak's master plan of how it was all going to unfold and he was going to reveal this master plan of how he was going to manage these two guys towards the world championship finale, then I guess we saw it in Singapore and what a mess it is,” Windsor said.

“It's taken Lando a long time, but I guess that was payback for Hungary last year, was it?

"It was a little bit the same. It wasn't quite as dramatic. I mean, Lando obviously was going down the inside when Oscar thought he had got the corner as you would. You know, it's your team-mate there. You've all made reasonably clean starts.

"Then you know it's George, Max and then Oscar and all of a sudden Lando's there on his left, which you know, for team-mates, first corner it's not what you do in my opinion and I think that's an example of how Zak's master plan has plenty of flaws in it because that's the most dangerous part of the race in which to damage a car in which to eliminate both cars."

The British racer's lap one lunge on his team-mate may have earned him a podium in Singapore, but it might have just lit a fire under Piastri that will cost Norris the championship.

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