McLaren has made the call to favour Britain’s Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri for the rest of the season – and the Aussie is on board.
Speaking with the BBC, team principal Andrea Stella confirmed the team would be “biased” towards Norris as it tries desperately to win both the driver’s and constructor’s world titles.
While the constructor’s crown is within reach, given the papaya team now seems to have the fastest car and is just eight points behind Red Bull, previous races have made it even more difficult for Norris to catch Max Verstappen.
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With eight races left Norris sits 62 points behind Verstappen, while Piastri is fourth overall 106 points back.
The Aussie won the Hungarian Grand Prix after Norris was told to give the race lead back, while Piastri finished second ahead of Norris when he passed his teammate on the opening lap at Monza last time out.
These incidents have seen some F1 commentators to call for more direct team orders to give Norris the best chance of winning his first world title, and now McLaren is on board.
“We (will) bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles,” Stella told the BBC.
“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.”
Previously Norris and Piastri had been allowed to race each other, as seen in Italy, but it appears this rule has been scrapped.
“What we don’t want to see any more is a situation like in Monza in which we enter a chicane P1/P2 and we exit P1/P3. Because that is a detriment to the team,” Stella said.
“The team interests comes first and these are the situations that above all we need to fix because eventually, as a matter of fact, the way we entered the race in Monza left the door open this situation.
“After Monza, three objectives: we need to make sure that anything that happens on track is not to the detriment of the team.
“Second objective, how do we win both championships, both drivers committed to help?
“But what we don’t want to do is win in a reckless way.
“Those are the three topics and they define the way we go racing in Baku. This will be updated after Baku.”
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Verstappen appears gettable despite his huge points lead, having not won in six races, and Piastri understands the reality of the situation.
“The conversations have been very collaborative,” Stella said.
“Even when I said to Oscar: ‘Would you be available to give up a victory?’ He said: ‘It’s painful, but if it’s the right thing to do now, I will do it’.
“Every driver is hard-wired to go for a victory. So I am always very impressed by the level of team spirit and maturity and collaboration that we found in this period.”
He continued: “Lando wants to win because he deserved the victory on track.
“It’s OK to be occasionally supported by your team-mate, but you don’t want to use, systematically, ways of adjusting the race just for the sake of the points when your team-mate is scoring in a way that he deserves. This is not the way McLaren want to win, or the way Lando wants to win.
“If I ask Lando, he would say: ‘I am comfortable if in Abu Dhabi [at the end of the season] I miss a few points that I could have got with some actions, but if those actions were not right at the time, then, you know what? We keep strong as a team, the team is stable and cohesive, we will give it a go next year’.”
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