Lando Norris is filled with regret after breaking McLaren’s “number one rule” in the Canadian Grand Prix.

All McLaren asks is that its two drivers don’t make contact — but that is unfortunately just what happened on Sunday.

Lando Norris regrets breaking McLaren’s No. 1 rule

In 2024, as McLaren began to find its footing up at the front of the Formula 1 field, team principal Andrea Stella and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown knew that the most critical part of their future success would be teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri working together.

In the latter half of the year, McLaren implemented something called “papaya rules,” which would dictate the rules of engagement between the teammates

“Our recommendation is always racing with the papaya rules, whereby, when the car is papaya, like you are always careful with any other competitor, but if the car is papaya, you take even extra care,” Stella told media including PlanetF1.com ahead of the 2024 Italian Grand Prix.

“We need to make sure, especially being the car so competitive, that we see the chequered flag and that we try and drive the race in synergy between our two drivers, rather than thinking that my main competitor is my team-mate.

“We try to stay away from this kind of mindset, because it’s not productive.”

Norris, too, was asked for his thoughts on the meaning of ‘papaya rules’ in 2024, and he replied, “Just don’t crash. That’s all.”

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Fast forward to the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.

In the closing laps of the race, Norris had chopped down the gap to his McLaren teammate and was well within DRS range to begin trying for a pass. It took several tries for the Briton to get alongside Piastri, but the two raced wheel-to-wheel, and Piastri held his position.

Coming on to the front straight, Norris tried again, darting out behind Piastri.

Then, disaster. Norris seemed to misjudge the distance between the two McLarens, and his rear wing collided with the left rear tyre of Piastri’s car. While the Aussie driver was able to carry on, Norris slid into pit wall and retired from the race.

Speaking to media after the Canadian Grand Prix, Lando Norris said, “Our rule No. 1 is to not make contact with your teammate, that’s what I did.

“McLaren is my family. I race for them. Every single weekend I try and do well for them, more than I often try and do well for myself.

“So when I let them down like this, and when I make a fool of myself in a moment like today, I have a lot of regret in something like that.

“I’m not proud of that, and I feel bad, and I feel like I let down my team, and that’s for me always the worst feeling. So of course, I only really need to apologize to all of them and Oscar as well.”

Norris did indeed apologize. He radioed in to the team immediately after the crash to take the blame. Later, in the media pen, he also apologized to Piastri.

But there’s always the possibility that these actions could result in a serious change in the way McLaren goes racing, with the team potentially reevaluating its stance on team orders.

“We want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be, at the end of the season, in the position that they deserve to be in based on their merit, based on their performance, and the racing quality that they have expressed through the season,” Andrea Stella told media after the Canada contact.

“Rather than being at the end of the season and realising that the points have been controlled more by the team, rather than the quality of their driving.

“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as as best as we can.

“So I don’t foresee that today’s episode will change our approach from this point of view – if anything, it will reinforce and strengthen that the principles we have requires more caution by our drivers.

“Because, if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact – even if in a DRS situation, the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”

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