Oscar Piastri has agreed to play a selfless supporting role in Lando Norris’ Formula 1 world championship push despite admitting McLaren’s team orders are “not that fun” for him.
The ambitious young Australian driver admits he’d prefer his British-based outfit had not decided to prioritise the Englishman’s ambitions above his, but said he understood the “bigger picture” with Norris now in position to challenge for Max Verstappen’s crown.
McLaren will prioritise Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri for the rest of this Formula 1 season.Credit: Getty Images
As the duo prepared for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend, Norris insisted he didn’t expect his younger, less experienced teammate to gift him race wins for the rest of the 2024 campaign but added he was grateful to Piastri for agreeing to let him be the favoured one.
“Selfishly, as a driver I have my own interests and team orders are not that fun, but in saying that, I realise there is a big bigger picture here than just myself,” Piastri, already a winner at the Hungarian Grand Prix this year, told reporters in Baku on Thursday in the build-up to Sunday’s race.
“It’s not just about me and I am happy to play a supporting role at this point of the season.
“I think any earlier in the season, it would have been probably excessive but I think now it’s an appropriate time to try and help the team win both [the drivers and constructors] championships.
“It still needs some more discussion, but the main point is it’s not me going to be pulling over for Lando every single race because none of us, including Lando, wants to go racing in that way.”
McLaren principal Andrea Stella told the BBC they wanted to support Norris “without too much compromise on our principles” of the team interest always coming first.
“Sportsmanship for us is important in the overall way we go racing. And then we want to be fair to both drivers,” the Italian said.
But he wanted McLaren to avoid a repeat of the situation in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza when Norris lined up on pole with Piastri second on the grid, with both ultimately losing out to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
In that race, Piastri overtook Norris at the start with Leclerc grabbing second place from the Briton, who had to slow, before the Monaco driver went on to win on strategy.
Norris said on Thursday that the McLaren reset was more likely to occur over battles for lower positions rather than if he and Piastri were running first and second.
“He’s [Piastri] still fighting for his own racing. He’s still going out and doing his stuff. And it could be that there’s no time this year that he needs to help me,” said Norris. “It’s more that I’ve got Oscar’s help when needs be.
“If he’s fought for a win, and he’s deserving of a win, then he deserves to win.
“If he goes out and he’s better than me, and performs better than me, and outqualifies me, and he wins a race, that’s because he’s done a better job.”
Norris is second in the drivers’ standings, 62 points behind Red Bull’s Verstappen with eight rounds remaining, plus three sprint races, while Piastri is fourth, 106 points off the lead with a maximum 232 points still to play for.
“The overall concept is we are incredibly determined to win, but we want to win in the right way,” Stella said.
“We [will] bias our support to Lando, but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles.”
2024 F1 DRIVER STANDINGS
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 303 points
- Lando Norris (McLaren) 241 points
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 217 points
- Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 197 points
1st: 25 points, 2nd: 18 points, 3rd: 15 points, 4th: 12 points, 5th: 10 points, 6th: 8 points, 7th: 6 points, 8th: 4 points, 9th: 2 points, 10th: 1 point.
There are eight races remaining this season.
The former Ferrari engineer said both Norris and bayside Melbourne product Piastri had accepted the situation.
“The conversations have been very collaborative,” he said.
“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.’”
AAP, Reuters