Martin Brundle: Papaya rules not to blame for McLaren Qatar GP blunder

Martin Brundle believes McLaren's 'papaya rules' were not to blame for their Qatar Grand Prix error, arguing that the team simply misread the safety car situation and threw away a crucial victory

Martin Brundle argued that McLaren's 'papaya rules' were not to blame for the Woking outfit's Qatar Grand Prix error, but the team just "read it wrong".

McLaren was the only team not to capitalise on the early safety car on the seventh lap of the Qatar Grand Prix. The team claimed at the time that pitting would have limited its strategy for the remainder of the race due to the 25-lap tyre limit. Those who pitted on lap 7 were forced to pit again on lap 32, but if another safety car had been deployed, McLaren would have had the flexibility to pit.

Many have pointed to the 'papaya rules' as a reason for McLaren's decision. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are in the fight for the drivers' championship, and pitting both cars would have put Norris at a disadvantage as the second car in what would have been a double-stack pitstop and splitting the strategy could have also favoured one car over the other.

But former Formula 1 driver Brundle argued that this was not the case. "I don’t think papaya rules cost McLaren. I think they just read it wrong," he told Sky Sports F1. "They thought they would get a safety car opportunity later on. They wanted that flexibility. Pretty much everybody else double-stacked.

"Andrea [Stella] made a point that he thought half the field would stay out, because they were right on the cusp – lap seven was the first point where pitting made sense. They misunderstood it all and got it wrong. It would have hurt Lando Norris stacking. Who knows whether they could have fed them out?

"I don’t think that was on their mind. I think they thought they were doing the right thing strategically for the race to keep that flexibility later on. But the tyres didn’t fall apart and Max Verstappen was plenty fast enough."

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Dom Gibbons / LAT Images via Getty Images

Brundle later added: "Of course, they should have both come in, or they should have split the strategy. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. They’ve made a key error on that, and it’s cost the team an important victory.

"I was trying to get some words out of Oscar after the race. He was broken, because he’s dominated this weekend. He’s comfortably the fastest driver around this track in his McLaren."

Piastri finished in second after starting from pole position and Norris finished fourth after starting from second. The drivers' championship fight will now go down to the wire at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the two McLaren drivers and four-time champion Max Verstappen still in the mix.