McLaren tell Oscar Piastri to help Lando Norris push for F1 title

Andrea Stella insists McLaren will favour Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri in the remaining eight races of the F1 season.

British driver Norris trails championship leader Max Verstappen by 62 points in the standings as he targets an unlikely comeback triumph.

Yet in the last race in Monza, pole-sitter Norris was overtaken by team-mate Piastri on the first lap and dropped down to third, the position he eventually finished the race as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc claimed victory.

Norris was also repeatedly asked to hand back first place to Piastri in July’s Hungarian Grand Prix – with the Brit ultimately adhering to the team’s instruction – but after some criticism of McLaren’s strategy, their team principal acknowledged a change in approach from this point on.

"The overall concept is we are incredibly determined to win, but we want to win in the right way,” he said, in an interview with the BBC. "We [will] bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles.

"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."

McLaren used a code phrase called “papaya rules” during the Italian Grand Prix over team radio, signalling that their drivers can race each other but without risk of collision.

Yet Stella, formerly of Ferrari, admitted the team’s objectives will now be streamlined to aid Norris though also insisted the constructors’ championship – where McLaren trail Red Bull by just eight points – is the priority.

"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, with 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."

While Norris is second in the drivers’ standings, Piastri trails his team-mate by 44 points in fourth.

F1 returns after a one-week break this weekend with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.