As the next F1 race in Mexico looms large, let’s stop pretending the papaya machine is neutral. McLaren talks equality like it’s reading from an HR manual, but the on-track reality looks more like an empire-era pecking order.
In one garage sits Oscar Piastri: quick, calm, relentlessly professional. Leading the championship despite the obvious bias against him within the team. Unfortunately for him, he’s an Aussie.
Oscar Piastri (left) is pictured with teammate Lando Norris at this year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, where McLaren’s bias against the Aussie came to the fore
In the other garage sits Lando Norris: Britain’s favourite son, marketed like a national treasure on soft-compound tyres. When the margins bite, the Brit gets the break and the Aussie gets shafted, every time. Call it what you like, it’s favouritism with a Union Jack flourish.
The pattern is subtle in the way British class systems are usually somewhat subtle: no smoking gun, just a thousand nudges that all point in the same direction. And in the aftermath of the Texas race, you can see that the enduring British bias is starting to impact on Piastri’s performance…a precursor to the British team’s ‘mission accomplished’, so long as Norris overtakes him to claim the championships rather than the Dutchman. The calls being made and the tone on radio messages all favour Norris.
Which car rolls the dice first when the clouds threaten or the safety car blinks? Look at Hungary, for example. McLaren split strategies, Norris on the long one stop, Piastri on the orthodox two-stop, and the Brit won, with the team later defending the split as ‘part of racing’, even though Piastri made it clear his preference was to cover his teammate.
Piastri leads the world drivers’ championship standings despite getting the rough end of the stick from his team
One driver is allowed to boldly nudge his way past the other, while Piastri is encouraged to be a good citizen of the collective. A team player. In Singapore, Norris forced through at turn three, the McLarens touched, and the team let the result stand before Norris finished in front of Piastri. Funny how the brave strategy so often favours the driver whose posters sell out in Surrey, isn’t it?
When there is contact on the track, listen closely. The British driver is praised for ‘racecraft’, the Aussie is asked to reflect on ‘risk management’. In Texas when Piastri was pushed into Norris (not something he could control) the British commentators found a way to blame the Aussie.
When tempers rise, the pastoral care flows to the homegrown hero: we hear you, we’ve got you, no need to worry. Piastri, in contrast, gets a lecture about playing the long game. The difference isn’t just tactical, it’s cultural. One driver is treated like a brand to be protected, the other like a resource to be efficiently deployed.
The Aussie was so angry at the Singapore Grand Prix earlier this month that he appeared to disconnect his team radio while McLaren CEO Zak Brown (pictured) was talking
When McLaren secured the constructors’ championship in Singapore, the team boss celebrated with Norris, but Piastri – who won the majority of the points to lock in the victory – was nowhere to be seen. This isn’t a criticism of Norris. He’s doing exactly what any elite racer should do. Take the gifts coming his way and make them count.
It’s a criticism of a system that insists the gifts don’t exist while quietly arranging them to benefit their man. Then there’s the choreography around pit windows, a delicate dance that somehow positions the British star’s car to step onto the right line at the right second. Advantage Norris, even though Piastri continues to defy the favouritism and leads the world championship.
Monza was the tell. After a slow Norris stop flipped track position, McLaren instructed Piastri to hand back his place, an explicit team order the Aussie later called ‘fair’ (playing the team game) but one that fed the perception of a tilt. And when the shoe was on the other foot? No change because the stewards didn’t intervene. It’s deeply inconsistent reasoning, defended in TV commentary by – you guessed it – British telecasters.
What’s wrong with this picture? The McLaren team celebrate winning the constructors’ championship in Singapore… without Piastri
Watch how quickly a marginal undercut becomes a moral imperative when it suits the home narrative. Watch how slowly urgency arrives when the Aussie’s race is about to become awkward for the British-centric McLaren marketing department. If you think the pit wall is immune to the gravitational pull of the home market, you’ll believe anything.
The communications strategy tells its own story. When Piastri speaks plainly after a bruising lap, it’s reframed as youthful impatience. When Norris bristles, it’s treated as a performance issue to be solved before the next race or lap.
The soft power here is everything. F1 doesn’t need to rig anything, it simply needs to reward what’s most convenient. The little Aussie battler is battling the entire establishment to win this year’s championship.
In Britain, convenience is a fast Brit in a British team winning in front of British cameras. It’s not malicious, it’s just muscle memory and nationalism on stilts.
Lando Norris’s win on October 5 was highly controversial thanks to his first-lap collision with his teammate
Australia has seen this movie before. Call it the Ashes principle: the rules are universal until they’re not, and the benefit of interpretation tends to land where the hymn book is printed.
In Test cricket, it looked like selective sanctimony. And don’t forget that infamous Bodyline series all those years ago. In F1, it looks like where the first stop goes, who gets the brave tyre, whose side of the garage leans into risk when silverware is within reach.
And yet Piastri keeps delivering, although the wear and tear is starting to show. He is the kind of competitor a team should build a dynasty around. Fast enough to intimidate, cool enough to collaborate and humble enough to avoid becoming a circus. That steadiness must be infuriating to the biased Brits. Imagine how much better he’d be doing if he was actually supported.
And Piastri rarely feeds the outrage machine, but even he is starting to show his frustrations. The problem (for him, not for the headline writers) is that calm excellence doesn’t trend. The West End doesn’t queue for stoicism. It queues for a show by a local.
The defence from McLaren and its chorus line of apologists in the media is predictable: we don’t do bias; the numbers decide, both drivers are treated equally. Bollocks.
Piastri (left) is pictured with team principal Andrea Stella (centre) and Norris at the Italian Grand Prix in September
Even neutrals are spelling it out: ex-Haas boss Guenther Steiner has urged McLaren to back the points leader (Piastri) or risk throwing away the drivers’ title while Max Verstappen closes in on the lead. He said that before the Dutchman won both races in Texas.
Give Piastri the first swing when the call is marginal. He’s the championship leader and Max is closing the gap. Hand him the speculative stop when the rain radar looks ominous.
Do that a few weekends in a row and let the lap charts do the talking. If nothing changes, I’ll write the mea culpa, but spare us the pieties until then.
Either McLaren is the modern, multinational outfit it claims to be, or it’s an old club with a new logo. The sport sells itself as the pinnacle of meritocracy, but that pitch rings hollow when the coin toss always seems to land Lando’s way.
Australians don’t want special treatment, just fairness.
The team’s ‘papaya rules’ are supposed to allow the two stars to race freely, but the reality appears to be very different
So here’s a simple, modest proposal. When the next flashpoint happens, do the counterintuitive thing and back the Aussie for a change. Give him the sharper tyre call, the priority stop, the unambiguous defence when the carbon shards are still warm.
Treat him as the lead actor, not the understudy. He’s in the lead, for heaven’s sake!
If Norris still wins out, brilliant, there is no argument to be had. But if Piastri suddenly turns those microscopic advantages into macroscopic results, non-Brits the world over won’t be at all surprised.
Until then, forgive the rest of us for seeing an empire that never quite packed up its tents, red coats and its naval fleets, joining the 21st Century. It simply moved into a glossy hospitality suite, learned to use data-driven excuses to justify its bias, and kept doing what it always did: favour the native son while telling the colonies to be patient.
Piastri doesn’t need charity, he needs parity. McLaren doesn’t need a scapegoat, it needs a mirror so it can take a cold, hard look at itself and its actions to date.
