McLaren is set to impose team orders on Oscar Piastri to aid Lando Norris's F1 title bid.
McLaren has signalled it is preparing to impose team orders on Oscar Piastri to aid Lando Norris's F1 title bid.
Heading into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, Norris is 62 points behind leader Max Verstappen with 232 points left up for grabs across the final eight rounds. Piastri is 106 behind Verstappen.
After the Italian GP, where Piastri overtook pole-sitter Norris on the opening lap on what turned out to be a poor day for Verstappen who finished sixth, the imposition of team orders on Piastribecame a major talking point - with McLaren's so-called 'papaya rules' being in force.
McLaren committed to a review post-Monza, with the team now confirming that it is all in on Norris's title bid with Piastri set to play the supporting act.
"We [will] bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles," team principal Andrea Stella told BBC Sport.
"Our principles are that the team's interest always comes first. We want to be fair to both drivers.
"What we don't want to see anymore 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.
"The team interests come first and these are the situations that above all we need to fix because as a matter of fact, the way we entered the race in Monza left the door open for this situation.
"The conversations [with Oscar] have been very collaborative.
"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 very impressed by the level of team spirit and maturity and collaboration that we found in this period."
