You can write your Papaya Rules on tablets of stone but nobody ever rolled them up the first corner at the Circuit of the Americas.
Instead, at the trap-laden first bend of the opening lap of the US Grand Prix sprint race in Austin, Oscar Piastri[1] collided with his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris[2].
Piastri, running third, cut into Nico Hulkenberg[3]’s Sauber, running fourth, sending him on two wheels and then into the other orange car, running second.
Piastri, and make no mistake about it, twitched left, not trying to take anyone out, but still imprudently. It’s like turning into a motorway lane with 17 cars up your jacksie.
Norris’s left-rear wheel came tumbling off and went bouncing down the track. Piastri hobbled on a little before he was told his suspension was shot. Both, clearly, were out of the race – the in-house ‘Papaya Rules’ that dictate no contact between the two McLaren men breached again.
And so the debate goes on about how the championship-leading pair race, following Singapore[4] a fortnight ago, when they hit each other, and how to prevent it, Norris marginally to blame then, as Piastri was here.
Lando Norris’ McLaren spins out as debris flies after a wreck with teammate Oscar Piastri
Norris (white suit) walks away from his car after crashing at the first corner in Austin, Texas
Norris was told there would be ‘consequences’ for his error. That was very harsh: he had tried to find a way through on the inside and clipped the back of Max Verstappen and was pinged into Piastri, again on lap one. He said anyone who didn’t understand that his chance was legitimate, if not perfectly executed, should not be in Formula One. It was a fair point.
As for the nature of the incident, another team’s car ricocheting into a McLaren — ring any bells today, anyone?
No wonder McLaren’s top two media people were huddled together in the hospitality area only moments later. Luca Colajanni, their chief spokesman, insisted to Daily Mail Sport that Piastri was in the clear, that he was 0.0000000000000000000001 per cent culpable if at all. But how could Hulkenberg be to blame? How was he to vanish from the spot of asphalt he inhabited?
But the McLaren spinners had little choice but to maintain their ludicrous protestations because chief executive Zak Brown had immediately exonerated Piastri by telling Sky emphatically during the race: ‘That was terrible. Neither of our drivers is to blame there. That’s some amateur-hour driving by (other) drivers up there at the front. They whacked out two guys.
‘I want to see the replay again but clearly Hulkenberg drove into Oscar and he had no business being where he was. He went into his left-rear tyre.’
Well, as I left McLaren hospitality, the Sky team were in the paddock live on air, including 2009 world champion Jenson Button. He and his pals were in unanimous agreement that Piastri had made the slight, but undeniable, blooper.
Button said: ‘From what Zak has said so far, other drivers have driven into Oscar. From a racing driver’s point of view, it was more on Oscar. Lando’s not even in this conversation. He was just unlucky to be there.’
Stella, the architect of Papaya Rules, and with Brown pivotal in leading the team to their second successive constructors’ title, has tried to keep harmony within the family. He is Mr Papaya Rules. His intentions are noble but a social experiment in Formula One’s bearpit.
Cars piled up on a blind first corner with numerous traps that drivers have to navigate
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen emerged from the chaos to win the sprint in Austin on Saturday
His take: ‘Losing the points is the most important thing. I don’t talk about bad intent, just prudence. A bit more prudence would have been good for everyone.’
Yes, Andrea, but whose prudence? His comments, I am afraid, sound like a sidestep to me, a shoulder drop.
There is not much time to find answers with today’s showpiece in Texas coming. When that same first bend will be as menacing as ever, and clouded minds no clearer. The DNF was particularly hard for Norris, who remains 22 points off Piastri. He said: ‘What else was I meant to do? I just got hit, taken out, so not a lot I could have done.’
As for the defence case, Piastri said: ‘I’ve not seen the incident from the TV cameras, but obviously I had a pretty good start. We both went pretty deep into Turn One and I tried to cut back, and got a hit, so not a great way to start the day.’
The sprint was won by Verstappen, the Red Bull man gaining eight points to move to within 55 of leader Piastri and moving inch by inch towards the possibility of retaining his title. He almost certainly will succeed in that aim if the McLarens don’t stop getting drawn into one another like magnets.
George Russell took a decent second place for Mercedes, diving unsuccessfully on Verstappen — who later scorched to pole position for the grand prix proper, with Norris second and Piastri sixth — before falling back a touch.
Carlos Sainz finished third for Williams, having started seventh, with Lewis Hamilton fourth for Ferrari and his team-mate Charles Leclerc fifth. All just numbers in a bigger and more gripping story.
References
- ^ Oscar Piastri (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Lando Norris (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Nico Hulkenberg (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Singapore (www.dailymail.co.uk)