McLaren’s Andrea Stella after Montreal clash: “Drivers must respect the papaya rules”. Andrea Stella confirms the “papaya rules” will remain after Norris and Piastri’s clash in Canada.

Andrea Stella after the Norris–Piastri incident
With a textbook mistake, Lando Norris threw away a potential podium finish at the Canadian GP by attempting an overtake where there was no space, against teammate Oscar Piastri. It was a move the British driver himself described as a big and stupid error, which left him 22 points behind the top of the championship—nearly a full race’s worth, and not a small gap against a Oscar Piastri who has been making far fewer mistakes.

With cooler heads after the race, team principal Andrea Stella chose not to come down hard on Lando Norris, highlighting that the driver’s immediate ownership of the mistake was a very positive sign. And to those who have criticized McLaren in recent hours for not allowing a faster Norris through, the Orvieto-born engineer responded by reaffirming the so-called papaya rules. In fact, moving forward, Andrea Stella wants these internal rules to be followed even more strictly by the drivers, who are being encouraged to give each other more space in wheel-to-wheel situations.

Andrea Stella’s words
“Lando took responsibility for what happened and also apologised to me. We appreciated that gesture. It was a misjudgement and a mistake that shouldn’t happen, but at the same time, it’s part of racing,” said Stella. “In the coming days, we’ll need to go deeper into what’s necessary to maintain the right margins. We will have some conversations, and those conversations may be tough. But they will happen once everyone is rested and calm.”

“Allowing drivers to race freely is a value we want to uphold and respect as much as possible, rather than managing everything from the pit wall. The team wants to maintain fairness and equality between the drivers, giving both Lando and Oscar the opportunity to race and end the season in the positions they deserve based on their performance,” he added. “This incident won’t change our approach—if anything, it reinforces the need for our drivers to exercise greater caution. If we say there must be no contact between the two McLarens, then we need to ensure there’s enough margin to prevent it, even if DRS can cause one car to get slightly pulled in and lead to a misjudgement.”

“This kind of situation will happen again, given how many races there are, so we must better evaluate the distances between cars,” Andrea Stella insisted. “It was purely an issue of space between the two cars—there was no intention from either driver to prove something to the other. If anything, the dangerous situation occurred at the chicane, and that’s exactly where I saw Lando and Oscar act wisely.”