Oscar Piastri reacts after McLaren prioritise Lando Norris: ‘It’s not set in stone’

Oscar PIastri insists surrendering a race victory for his team-mate Lando Norris is “not set in stone” after McLaren insisted they will favour the British driver for the rest of the F1 season.

Norris trails Max Verstappen by 62 points in the drivers’ standings but was thwarted by team-mate Piastri in the last race in Italy, when the Australian overtook him on lap one and he also dropped behind eventual winner Charles Leclerc. Norris was also forced to give up first place for Piastri in July’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

Yet team principal Andrea Stella has since revealed that McLaren will now focus on helping Norris chase down Verstappen with eight races to go, though were keen to do so “without too much compromise on our principles… the team interest always comes first.”

Asked about the situation ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix and potentially giving up first place for Norris, Piastri said: “It’s still something that we need to speak about a little bit more. For the whole team, we want to avoid that if we can.

"I know that after speaking to Lando and Andrea, nobody wants to see the race dictated by that. That includes Lando himself.

"With still a big gap [in the championship], ultimately it’s down to the team to decide if that’s what we want to do and if the call comes, that’s what I will be doing.

"But it’s not set in stone that I will give up the race, no matter what the circumstances are. There is still some degree of movement and flexibility because, ultimately, we all agree as a team, if someone has done a clearly better job at the weekend, that still deserves to be rewarded.

"If it’s Lando, then obviously in my championship position, I won’t be doing that. If it was that way, if my team-mate was beating me by 10 seconds, I wouldn’t expect that in return. I think we are all very aligned on that and ultimately it will be the team’s call."

Stella stated that McLaren would show “bias our support” towards Norris, who is targeting an unlikely comeback in the standings to win his first F1 world title.

"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."

Norris, meanwhile, admitted that the new approach would make his challenge to chase down Verstappen easier, starting this weekend in Baku.

“I think the main thing is we came out of turn four [in Monza] in first and third and had the biggest gap in the world going into the corner," said Norris, referring to Piastri’s overtake in the Italian GP.

"So it wasn’t an ideal point in my world, but also as a team. It’s not how we should have gone racing there. I think clearer instructions of how we can race each other has been cleared up."

"In general, [the new rules are] probably for lower positions but if he’s fought for a win and deserving of a win, then he deserves to win.”