F1 News
Are papaya rules back? Andrea Stella explains team order call
- Savannah Lenz
After a rocky period of 'Papaya Rules' within McLaren last season, things were cleared up between the team prior to the beginning of the season. However, in just the season's first race, team orders were given out again. Andrea Stella explains the situation.
"During the race at some stage we had to go relatively soon to some back markers, while the cars were close together and the conditions on track were still a little tricky with wet tires or intermediate tires that were running down a bit in terms of their rubber on," Stella told GPblog and others.
This is why McLaren used team orders in Australia
According to the McLaren team principal, it was just a momentary pause to the battle between the drivers. "At the same time, we were receiving some updates on the weather forecast. So we had the going through the back markers and the update on the weather forecast that led us to close for a short period of time the internal racing between our two drivers until we had clarity as to the weather prediction, what this meant for how we should have used the tires, and then until we had closed the matter of overtaking the back markers. So once this was completed and the weather was assessed, then we reopened the racing."
The Italian explained that both Norris and Piastri knew the situation was temporary. "The drivers were aware when we gave the team order to hold positions and then they were aware when we told them to be free to race."
He added, "I’m left to review the communications with the drivers, but for the drivers, we didn't even know ourselves how long this period would have been until the weather forecast had become a little clearer. We just try to keep this period as short as possible. And the drivers know that this is the case, so we don't want to make it unnecessarily long."
This article was written in collaboration with Sandy van Wijngaarden.
Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!