Under the Singaporean night sky, in sweltering 31 degrees celsius, Zak Brown stood tall, his chest filled with pride, as his team became back-to-back Formula 1 Constructors Champions for the first time since 1991.
Brown took over the team as CEO in 2018, just two years after joining the firm, when McLaren were near the bottom of the Formula 1 pecking order. Vocal outbursts from Fernando Alonso were more frequent than decent results, but since then Brown has done exactly what he set out to do: bring McLaren back to the top.
However, his personnel don’t share the same team spirit.
Current championship leader Oscar Piastri was in quite the opposite mood. So much so, when Brown spoke over the team radio to congratulate Piastri on his hard work, he pulled the cord out for a bit of post race peace and quiet. The Australian didn’t appear on the podium either for championship celebrations and was missing from the majority of team photographs.
Mclaren celebrate their 2025 title | Photo courtesy of McLaren
Piastri’s Singapore shenanigans occurred due to contact made on the first lap of Sunday’s Grand Prix between himself and teammate Lando Norris. Piastri believes he should have been given back the position taken by Norris due to the incident, but McLaren told Piastri it would be discussed after the race.
This outburst is not out of nothing. Piastri’s distaste for McLaren has stemmed from the first christening of “papaya rules” back in Italy in 2024.
“Papaya rules” is code word for how the McLaren drivers are expected to race each other. Papaya, was the first colour used by Bruce McLaren on his race cars, and the current colour of Mclaren’s automotive machinery. Brown told BBC Sport at that very race that the drivers are told to “race clean, race hard, but do not touch.”
In 2024, the ‘rules’ were used to benefit Norris in his fight against Dutchman Max Verstappen, but in 2025, McLaren have created a mess with them.
The two McLaren drivers came to blows in Montreal, however this wasn’t actually the match that lit the fire.The ignition was Piastri’s belief that papaya rules have favoured Norris since then.
In Hungary, Piastri was given a two stop strategy after taking the race lead very early on. His teammate Norris lost two positions, and was given one stop, which inevitably led to him gaining the lead, with the better of the two strategies. Norris would go on to win the race. Although Piastri wasn’t the chirpiest post race, he understood that the one stop strategy was a bigger risk. “It’s much easier to take that risk when you’re the car behind, our plan was always a two stop strategy,” said the Australian.
Then as the championship leaders returned to Monza, on the one year anniversary of papaya rules, the next big incident occurred.
Upon a slow pitstop for Norris, Piastri was ordered to let his teammate by, a move that would result in a minor points swing in the championship. Piastri immediately voiced his concern over team radio, stating how the team had already said “a slow pitstop was part of racing,” and he didn’t understand “what’s changed here.” His feelings for McLaren have been fairly negative since.
Now, in a post Singapore outburst world, the story gets more interesting. Zak Brown is currently involved in an ongoing court case in regards to its INDYCAR outfit, Arrow McLaren. McLaren had secured the signature of now four time INDYCAR champion Alex Palou, however Palou broke the contract suddenly, and never joined the team.
Due to this, an already agreed sponsorship package from NTT Data, signed with a contingent of Palou driving with their logo, was dropped, costing McLaren approximately $20m. Brown has sued Palou for the loss of these funds.
Within the case, Palou’s lawyer, Nick De Marco, expressed concerns that Brown made “false promises of F1 glory,” and has been “shafting drivers.” His client only signed for the team because Brown promised him a shot at Formula 1. Brown claimed he never said such a thing, and stated he “never told him he would be under consideration for 2023.” He only said there was “some optionality to join F1.”
There is a more pressing matter for his Australian superstar, however. Palou has stated that Brown told him signing Piastri was “not his decision,” and rather a decision of team boss Andreas Seidl. “Zak told me Piastri’s performance would be evaluated against mine for 2024. Zak said that, from his point of view, my chance of getting the F1 seat was not affected by Oscar,” said Palou.
Heading into the United States Grand Prix, it was also revealed that Brown was heavily involved in Norris’ esports content startup, Quadrant, but stepped down after the Veloce Media Group became the majority shareholders.
In what should be a joyous time for the McLaren team, with total dominance over the grid (bar Vestappen) that hasn’t existed for the Woking team since the days of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, tensions have never been higher. Rumours have been emerging that Piastri may even consider leaving the team post 2025, but these are merely chinese whispers for now.
Brown has a massive job to do to avoid further conflict between his men, and ensure that both championships are won by papaya. Any further fissures between the teammates may result in another aspect of the Senna/Prost partnership, where championships were decided through collision.
It was all rosey in the McLaren garden, but the plants slowly seem to be dying.
