'Papaya Rules' refers to the principles the Woking-based team race by. These rules sparked widespread debate during the 2025 three-way title battle between Piastri, Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, with many from the F1 paddock criticizing McLaren.

Piastri ultimately lost the 2025 world championship to team-mate Norris, by just 13-points. Coming into the 2026 season, the question remains, will McLaren's 'Papaya Rules' take precedent for yet another season?

Piastri opened up about the 'Papaya Rules', saying: "It gets talked about a lot. Behind the scenes, it's a much smaller discussion and a smaller deal than what it gets made out to be. But, we've got our ways of going racing, and it's constantly evolving. We'll do a review, and we already have reviewed."

The Australian added: "Do we want to do things exactly the same? Do we want things to change a bit? We'll get a handle on that fully before we go racing again. For me, the intentions were always in the right place, and we'll do some tweaking if we feel we need it, to try and make life a bit easier for ourselves."

Piastri's comments come shortly after McLaren Team Principal, Andrea Stella, was also questioned on 'Papaya Rules'.

The team principal, speaking at a team event attended by GPblog, touched on the possibility of certain modifications to the papaya rules. Stella stated: "I can certainly say that, like with anything we approach at McLaren, we go through a thorough review process so that we can see where the opportunities to improve are."

Stella continued: "We received quite a lot of feedback during last season. We had conversations after the season, and we are having discussions pretty much as we speak now. All of this has led us to reaffirm, fundamentally, as I said before, that the concepts of fairness, integrity, equal opportunities, and sportsmanship are all fundamental for the team, for Lando [Norris], and for Oscar [Piastri]."

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