The 2024 Italian GP saw a masterful performance by Charles Leclerc to claim victory but one of the big stories were the mystery of the papaya rules issued by McLaren F1 as their drivers tangled, so exactly are they?
Oscar Piastri pulled off a spectacular Lap 1 overtake on Lando Norris at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, dropping the polesitter down to third by the second lap, with the pair apparently free to race each other.
Later as Norris threatened to close up on his McLaren F1 teammate he was told that he’s free to engage the Australian provided that he adhered to papaya rules, so what exactly is the controversial racing code?
“It’s about driving with respect for each other, giving each other enough space and not getting in each other’s way,” Zak Brown, McLaren CEO, told Sky Sports F1 at the 2024 Italian GP. “And that’s exactly what they did.”
It means that there are clear rules of engagement, or even non-engagement at times, which last bubbled to the surface for McLaren at the 2024 Hungarian GP when Norris was repeatedly requested to surrender the lead to his teammate.
“When the car is papaya, you are always careful with any other competitor,” Stella told members of the media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “But if the car is papaya, you take even extra care.
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“We need to make sure, especially being the car so competitive, that we see the chequered flag.”
Team orders notably appeared for McLaren when they claimed a 1-2 finish at the 2021 Italian GP. On that day, the two championship contenders, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, crashed out of the race on Lap 25.
Norris was told not to challenge Daniel Ricciardo for the lead of the race to protect the result for the team with the sister Red Bull of Sergio Perez and Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas close behind, as well as Leclerc’s Ferrari.
What are famous examples of F1 team orders?
Racing codes and team orders are very common in F1 when teams aim to preserve their result and especially if one driver is fighting for the title whilst the other is realistically not in contention.
The 2010 F1 season saw team orders banned in order to allow authentic results although teams found clever workarounds, such as Ferrari when they managed to swap Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.
The Brazilian had left the majority of the race and even repelled his title-fighting rival to retain the lead but Stefano Domenicali’s team inverted their positions with the code phrase, “Felipe, Fernando is faster than you.”
Ferrari were fined $100,000 (£64,000) for a breach of Article 151c of the FIA‘s sporting code and received widespread condemnation from personalities such as Christian Horner and Eddie Jordan.
That isn’t the only example of team orders at the German GP, which was formerly hosted at the Hockenheimring until the circuit lost its contract with F1 at the end of the 2019.
Hamilton and Bottas have also had their fair share of team orders too, with the highest profile moment coming at the 2018 German GP when the Finn was told not to challenge his Silver Arrows colleague after Sebastian Vettel crashed out on Lap 51.
Bottas complied as Hamilton went on to win from 14th on the grid and took a 17-point lead at the top of the F1 standings with 10 races to go, whilst Mercedes took the lead of the team’s championship.
But the most notorious example of team orders came at the 2002 Austrian GP when Rubens Barrichello slowed on the line to allow Michael Schumacher to take victory by 0.182 following a similar incident at the same race the year prior.
Schumacher was booed on the podium, despite putting his colleague on the top step and handing him the winners trophy, although he defended the decision to implement team orders post-race.
Ferrari were fined a million dollars by the FIA World Motor Sport Council and team orders were banned from the 2003 F1 season.
