Brundle rejects McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’ as cause of Qatar debacle

McLaren’s massive Qatar Grand Prix screw up has been dissected from every angle, with many fans and pundits pointing to the team’s “papaya rules” as the source of the team’s ill-inspired choice not to pit its drivers under the race’s early Safety Car regime.

But Sky F1’s Martin Brundle dismissed that theory outright, shutting down the idea that McLaren froze because they were terrified of favouring one driver over the other in a double-stack nightmare.

The former Grand Prix driver believes the team didn’t lose out because of its commitment to fairness – they just got the call wrong. Flat-out.

'They misunderstood it all and got it wrong'

McLaren was the only squad that refused to pit under the lap-7 Safety Car triggered by Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly’s clash.

With Pirelli imposing a maximum 25-lap stint length, most of the field – including both Red Bulls – dived in to bank one of the mandatory stops at a huge discount. McLaren stayed out, hoping that fresher tyres later in the race and strategic flexibility would pay off.

It didn’t. While Max Verstappen took his 70th career win in D1, Piastri recovered to finish second, while Norris slipped to fourth from the front row, setting up a three-way showdown in Abu Dhabi next weekend.

“I don’t think papaya rules cost McLaren. I think they just read it wrong,” Brundle 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.”

He added that Andrea Stella, McLaren’s team boss, misjudged how rivals would react.

“Andrea 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,” he added.

“They misunderstood it all and got it wrong. It would have hurt Lando Norris stacking. Who knows whether they could have fed them out?”

• Read also: McLaren explains rationale behind Qatar strategy call gone wrong

For Brundle, the motive wasn’t fairness – it was plain strategy.

“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.”

Montoya: ‘They were so afraid of making decisions’

While Brundle absolved McLaren’s equality policy, fellow TV pundit Juan Pablo Montoya had a sharper take. For him, fear – not fairness – drove the team into a corner.

“I think honestly McLaren thought, ‘Okay, we're still too close. We're going to have to double-stack. Oscar is gonna be fine, but we're sacrificing Lando here, and Lando might lose five or six places because he won't, you know, he's going to have to have maybe an unsafe release or find a hole.’”

Montoya believes the team panicked about putting Norris at risk.

“And I think they were so afraid,” he added. “They thought he had enough pace to get away with it. So that for me was the first surprise.

“The last surprise was Lando going to hards. After we spoke in practice, he hated them. He couldn't drive the car on the hards. They went to the softs, he looked really competitive, and the mediums looked really competitive. Hold Max a little longer and go to softs.

“I think they're so afraid of making decisions. They're so afraid of screwing it up that a lot of times, when you're afraid of making [bad] decisions, you end up making them.”

Abu Dhabi now awaits – one race, three title contenders, and a McLaren pit wall desperate to prove that Qatar’s chaos was a blip, not a pattern.

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