Helmut Marko has had a jab at McLaren’s “new version of the Papaya Rules” that potentially cost them a shot at the victory at the Japanese Grand Prix.

The “only team”, according to Lando Norris, with “two good drivers” in their line-up, McLaren had to deal with a small team order issue as the Briton and Oscar Piastri chased Max Verstappen around the Suzuka circuit.

Helmut Marko: Maybe this is a new version of the Papaya Rules

Running second and third as McLaren faced their first Grand Prix defeat of the F1 2025 championship, Piastri wanted McLaren to tell Norris to move over for him.

“If Lando is still saving, I think he should go soon,” Piastri said over the radio. “I think I have the pace to get Max.”

Told that “this is Lando’s pace”, he reiterated: “Okay, like I said, I think I have the pace to get Max.”

McLaren didn’t issue the order nor did Norris attack Verstappen for the victory, the Briton crossing the line 1.4s down on the Red Bull driver with Piastri a further 0.7s back.

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The team’s refusal to give Piastri track position was one of several strange decisions McLaren made on the day, with Jacques Villeneuve saying it is “as if they’re trying to not win“.

Marko, celebrating Red Bull’s first Grand Prix victory of the season, one that brought Verstappen to within a point of Norris in the Drivers’ Championship, was crowing over the apparent blunder from Red Bull’s title rivals.

“The strategy they choose is up to them,” the 81-year-old reportedly told the German media.

“It looked like Piastri was the faster driver. The question is whether he could have overtaken Max, because that’s a different story on this circuit.

“But maybe this is a new version of the Papaya Rules,” he added with a laugh.

“We would have swapped,” he continued. “But McLaren has the Papaya Rules, and they are their own rules.”

Last season McLaren’s ‘Papaya Rules’ came to the fore as Norris and Piastri edged closer to Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, the Briton ahead of the Australia.

But as their two good drivers took points off one another, most notably Piastri in Hungary and then again in Italy, McLaren laid out the ‘Papaya Rules’.

“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,” he told media including PlanetF1.com.

“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.”

The rule was later clarified with Norris given priority, Stella telling BBC: “We [will] bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles.

“Our principles are that the team interest always comes first. Sportsmanship for us is important in the overall way we go racing. And then we want to be fair to both drivers.”

But with a reset at the beginning of the F1 2025 championship as all 20 drivers started with zero points, today McLaren’s ‘Papaya Rules’ relate more to don’t crash than who should come out on top.

After three races in F1 2025, Norris leads the standings by a point ahead of Verstappen with Piastri a further 12 off the pace.

Read next: Explained: Why Piastri didn’t attack Norris at the Japanese GP