BAKU, Sept 12 (Askume) – McLaren would prefer Lando Norris over teammate Oscar Piastri in the Formula 1 championship, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told the BBC on Thursday during a meeting with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.
Britain’s Norris is second, 62 points behind three-time world champion Max Verstappen with eight rounds and three sprint races remaining, while Australia’s Piastri is fourth, 106 points behind the leader.
The driver standings have a maximum of 232 points.
McLaren is in the running for both titles and can win the constructors’ championship at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, with the team just eight points behind once-dominant Red Bull.
Stella told the broadcaster: “The general concept is that we are very determined to win, but we want to win in the right way.”
“We will provide assistance to Lando, but we want to do so without unnecessarily compromising our principles.”
“Our principle is that the interests of the team always come first. For us, sportsmanship is important throughout the race. And then we want to be fair to both drivers.”
Stella said McLaren wanted to avoid a repeat of Monza, when Norris won and Piastri finished second but was beaten by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
In that race, Piastri overtook Norris at the second chicane, while Leclerc took second from the Briton, who had to slow strategically to win. Verstappen finished sixth.
“The interests of the team are paramount and these are the situations we need to address first because the fact is the way we went into Monza left the door open for this situation to arise,” Stella said.
The former Ferrari engineer said both his drivers have accepted the situation.
“The conversation was very collaborative,” he said. “I said to Oscar though: ‘Are you willing to sacrifice winning?’ He said: ‘It’s sad, but if it’s the right thing to do right now, I’m going to do it.’”
