Lando Norris claims he wouldn’t be world champion if he’d ignored one McLaren team order

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Lando Norris’ world championship was not won without its controversy, as McLaren caused major drama and tension over team orders.

McLaren have tried to maintain fairness during racing between Norris and Oscar Piastri over the years through ‘papaya rules’. However, many have questioned whether that has actually played out.

Many believe that Norris was favoured over Piastri in 2025 as the Aussie lost the lead of the title, which he had held for 15 races, and finished third. But his teammate believes that McLaren would not be the same without the team orders.

Lando Norris says he wouldn’t be F1 champion if he had ignored Hungary 2024 team orders

The most controversial example of papaya rules was at the 2024 Hungarian GP. Piastri had been leading the race when McLaren decided to pit Norris first to protect him from an undercut, but he ended up taking the lead from his teammate.

At the time, the Brit was chasing down Max Verstappen for the championship, and the win would have closed the gap. But McLaren came over the radio asking him to relinquish the lead back to Piastri, which he eventually did.

The incident was heavily criticised, even by McLaren’s rivals. Christian Horner didn’t understand why Piastri wasn’t pitted first, highlighting that it put the team in an awkward situation.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Norris was upset after the race, but he and McLaren soon talked things out and came to a resolution. Looking back on the controversy, the 26-year-old claims that he would not have gone on to win the title if he had ignored the order.

“I mean, it’s going to be a collection of things, depends how strong you are as a teammate,” he said on the Beyond The Grid podcast: “It can be hiding things, just lying, not upholding to things you might have said before the races.

“You can easily go back to Budapest a couple years ago. I led the race, and there’s so many people like, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have let him back past’ and all those things.

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“So easy for me to just keep pounding around and win the race. Some people might have loved that, but I genuinely probably wouldn’t have been able to live with that for the rest of my life.

“The team wouldn’t be the same as they are now, probably wouldn’t have won the constructors for the last two years, which probably means we wouldn’t have won the driver’s championship. I wouldn’t have won a driver’s championship last year.

“That’s how easy it is for things to go wrong in Formula 1. So yeah, I think if I won that race, McLaren wouldn’t have achieved what they have over the last few years.”