Brown offered Wolff McLaren's papaya rulebook a day before Norris took out Piastri

The exchange came up while Wolff was dismissing claims that Mercedes favours Kimi Antonelli over George Russell. "They're brainless, whoever thinks that," the Mercedes boss said.

That's when Brown cut in. According to the official FIA transcript, the McLaren CEO said:

Wolff turned the offer down with a joke: "You have the exclusive rights on fruits, Papaya Rules, so we need to come up with something better."

Brown once summed up the papaya rules himself. In 2025 he called them "pretty much one rule: don't touch each other and don't run each other off the track."

On Saturday that rule failed. Norris, running fifth behind Piastri in fourth, attempted to overtake his teammate but clipped the Australian's rear tyre with his front wheel, sending both cars spinning at Turn 5. Piastri was out of the race, and Norris recovered to finish eighth, collecting a single point in the process.

The crash also helped Mercedes as it ended up handing Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli fourth place.

Mercedes have had their own flashpoints this year. After Russell and Antonelli clashed in the Canadian Sprint, Wolff explained how the team had agreed to handle these fights: "We agreed that we trust them, they know how to push. But in any case, no one is expecting the other one to leave space, because it's too important."

That approach cost Mercedes in Barcelona. The two drivers went wheel to wheel there and it was the second time in three race weekends that a fight between the Mercedes teammates ended with one of the two retiring with car troubles. It was Russell in Canada, and Antonelli in Barcelona. Afterwards, Wolff said: "We didn't interfere in them fighting, because that's how we always raced."

Since then, Mercedes' problem has become how their drivers are treated, rather than collisions. In Singapore, Wolff said: "I've always tried, since I came into Formula 1, even in my Williams days, to be the most balanced and the most transparent with the drivers." He pointed to the team running different car specifications that weekend as proof: Antonelli is running the recent upgrade, while Russell has reverted back to his Azerbaijan-spec W17.

The standings make the comparison clear. After Malaysia, Russell's retirement in Malaysia already helped Antonelli stretch his lead over Russell from 66 to 84 points, with seven races remaining this season, according to AP. McLaren, meanwhile, heads to Austin now 105 points behind P2 Ferrari in the Constructors'.

Wolff mocked people who believe the favouritism theories, but he never said Mercedes had solved the problem of two drivers racing each other. Brown offered his rulebook as the answer, and a day later his own drivers showed it hasn't solved the problem at McLaren either.