AUSTIN, Texas — On Thursday at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris set tongues wagging in the paddock with a single word.
On Friday, it was their boss’s turn to address that word.
Contact between the two McLaren teammates on the opening lap of the Singapore Grand Prix — which was initiated by Norris — was the latest chapter in a season-long title fight between the two drivers. While McLaren declined to intervene during the race, Norris and Piastri both outlined on Thursday in Austin how internal discussions following the Singapore Grand Prix resulted in “repercussions” and “consequences” for Norris.
However, they would not elaborate on what those were, and when given the chance on Friday, Brown declined as well.
“You know, we set out at the beginning of the year how we want to race and how we want to race each other, and the ‘Papaya Rules’ which everyone likes to talk about is pretty much one rule, which is don’t touch each other and don’t run each other off the track,” began Brown during the FIA Press Conference Friday at the United States Grand Prix. “So it’s quite simple, and it’s kind of taken on a bit of a life of its own.
”And we just want to make sure that while they’re racing hard they they don’t come together. That puts them at risk, puts the team at risk, and so we agreed with them in the offseason, how we would handle certain situations.
“It was a pretty minor incident, start of a Grand Prix. It’s pretty chaotic. It was a damp track, so it clearly wasn’t intentional, and so we worked through with them with different consequences for different situations. It was a pretty minor situation, so it’s a pretty minor consequence.”
In follow-up questions, the McLaren CEO declined to share further details on just what those consequences were for Norris.
“No, we don’t want to get into that,” started Brown.
”I think it’s private business between us. I know everyone’s interested to know, but both drivers are in a great place, and we just want to set them up to continue to be able to race each other.
“It’s, it’s not easy having two number one drivers. Toto [Wolff] has done it before, and I think Laurent [Mekies] sure will. But we want to have both drivers competing for the championship, and with that comes challenges that are more challenging than if you had a No. 1 and No. 2 driver, which we’ve seen over the years,” continued Brown.
“So we’re racers, we like to see them race, but we don’t like to see them touch each other.”
Pressed further on the matter, with the press pointing to comments that the McLaren boss made with Sky Sports F1 earlier in the day about how the consequences would be “negligible,” Brown outlined how it was an issue of McLaren not wanting to show their hand to their rivals.
“We’re racing against nine other teams,” Brown said. “I don’t think you want to necessarily show your hand on how you go motor racing. So we try to be as transparent as possible, but there’s a reason why engineering debriefs are only with teams; otherwise, you start inviting other teams in.
”So I think that’s the best we can do.
“We try to be as transparent as possible in saying that some action has been taken, so I think that’s been very transparent, but at the end of the day, we’re at a sporting event and we can’t necessarily tell everyone everything,” concluded Brown. “No different than our setup sheets aren’t that very public.”
This would seem to suggest that the result is some sort of sporting consequence for Norris. If McLaren does not want to pull the curtain back any further than this, it opens the door to that potential interpretation.
On the other hand, perhaps this dear reader summed it up best:
One thing we do know for sure? This will not be the last time we hear the word “repercussions” this season.
