Lando Norris admits he’s happy with how McLaren handled his and Oscar Piastri’s race at the F1 2025 Emilia Romagna GP as he reflects on a snub after the team opted against orders and denied the Brit a chance to race Max Verstappen for the win.
Papaya rules have been the subject of much controversy for the better part of 12 months and they threatened to flare up again at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari on May 18.
A late safety car saw Norris box for new tyres and drop down to third in the order, whilst his colleague opted to stay out and inherited track position behind the four-time world champion’s Red Bull.
He then coyly told his engineer that he will be faster than Piastri on worn hard tyres and that if the team wants to beat the four-time world champion to the win then they “know what to do”.
However, McLaren elected to snub the request at the F1 2025 Emilia Romagna GP and made Norris make the move on the track, but he has no issues with the decision as he reflects on the call.
“I was on better tyres, but I didn’t expect anything,” Norris told Sky Sports F1. “It was still a tough fight. It was close into turn one.
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“It’s the way it should be. I lose time through that, and then he loses time, but it’s what we have to do in order to battle for a championship.
“If you try and make someone happy, the other one’s going to be unhappy, so it’s the way it is. I think we handled it well, and it was a good job by the team.”
Stella suggests Norris couldn’t win F1 2025 Emilia Romagna GP for McLaren
McLaren knew that by allowing Piastri to remain ahead of Norris, who had a tyre advantage, that they were making their odds of beating Verstappen to the punch considerably harder in Imola.
However, their team boss admits that whilst they thought about sending the command to swap the cars around but felt it would be unfair to Piastri within the context of catching the Red Bull.
Additionally, they also believed if Norris had the pace to win the F1 2025 Emilia Romagna GP then he would have made the move early enough to get after Verstappen himself.
“It was definitely a thought,” Andrea Stella told Sky Sports F1, when asked if they considered letting Norris through. “We want to have Oscar having his own chances at the restart.
“So we assumed the principle if Lando was able to pass Max he should have been able to pass Oscar pretty easily considering he was on fairly old tyres. In reality, if the pace delta was enough things would have taken care of themselves.
“We are happy with how things unfolded. Both drivers are happy think that was fair and that’s the way we go racing.”
