Nico Rosberg comments on Oscar Piastri giving way to Lando Norris on team orders

The Italian GP saga, involving Lando Norris switching places with Oscar Piastri after team orders, has left the F1 sphere polarized. Subsequently, former F1 champion-turned analyst Nico Rosberg shared his take on the situation between the papaya duo and how he would have reacted if he were in Piastri's boots.

Heading into the Italian GP weekend, Piastri's lead had increased to 34 points as Norris had suffered a mechanical failure at the Dutch GP. In the lead-up to the race at Monza, the Briton remained the faster of the two drivers around the temple of speed and was slated to finish higher than his championship rival by the end of the 53 laps.

However, a slow pit stop relegated him behind the Aussie, leading McLaren to intervene and instruct Piastri to let Norris retake the position. This instance soon left the paddock divided into sections, and whether it was the right thing to do, to which Rosberg shared his views, as he said, via Sky Sports F1:

"I would have pulled the radio plug, and told them after the race: 'Sorry, I didn't hear you guys!'"

"In actual fact, the first step is: is it clearly defined in the rules? And I can tell you that it's not defined in the papaya rules, because it's not something that you can put down in a rule. It's so hard because where is the cutoff point to that."

With Lando Norris being handed the second-place result by Oscar Piastri in the dying stages of the race, he reduced his championship deficit to the 24-year-old down to 31 points.

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Lando Norris asserts that there are no papaya rules anymore

Oscar Piastri (L) and Lando Norris (R) at the 2025 F1 Grand Prix of the Netherlands race weekend - Source: Getty

Since last year, papaya rules have become a relatively talked-about point heading into race weekends. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been in proximity to each other in the championship standings, leading to the formation of new storylines about the saga between the two dominating the paddock.

So, when the 25-year-old was asked about such papaya rules after the Italian GP, he shared a peculiar response, via PlanetF1:

"There are no papaya rules anymore. We’ve never had them. Yes. It’s not even a page long, actually. And this covers many things, fairness for me and for Oscar. I don’t choose that these things happen. We don’t care what’s happened in the past, but we do what we think is right for us."

On the other hand, the next F1 Grand Prix will take place at the Baku street circuit in Azerbaijan between September 19 and 21.