McLaren to give Norris priority over Piastri

McLaren has asked Oscar Piastri to support teammate Lando Norris‘ in his title bid for the remaining eight races of the season.

Norris is Max Verstappen’s closest competitor in the drivers’ standings and narrowed the gap to 62 points at the last round in Italy.

Ahead of this weekend’s race in Azerbaijan, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri had agreed to support Norris as he attempts to catch Verstappen.

“We [will] bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles,” Stella told BBC Sport.

“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.”

The subject of supporting Norris gained traction at the last round in Italy after Piastri took the lead of the race from his teammate on the opening lap.

Norris had started from pole position with the possibility of taking significant points out of Verstappen’s championship lead, but by the fourth corner had dropped to third place after Piastri muscled his way past, which allowed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to take second place.

“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 added.

“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.”