McLaren F1 sets Norris as its lead for the championship, with Piastri supporting in a strategic, fair manner.
It’s official, McLaren has announced it will prioritize Lando Norris over teammate Oscar Piastri in its bid to win both Formula 1 world championships this year.
However, Andrea Stella, the team’s director, stated that any action taken to support Norris in the driver’s title race would only be within the team’s principles of sportsmanship and fairness.
“The general concept is that we are incredibly determined to win, but we want to win in the right way,” he said.
“We will direct our support towards Lando, but we want to do so without overly compromising our principles.”
“Our principles are that the team’s interest always comes first. Sportsmanship is important to us in the overall way we approach racing. And then we want to be fair to both drivers.”
Until now, McLaren had allowed Norris and Piastri to compete without team intervention.
The policy shift to find ways to enhance Norris’s chances of beating Verstappen for the driver’s title follows a series of meetings between McLaren’s leadership and their drivers after the Italian Grand Prix.
“What we no longer want to see is a situation like at Monza where we enter a chicane 1st and 2nd and come out 1st and 3rd. Because that’s a detriment to the team.”
“The team’s interests come first, and it’s these situations that we need to address foremost because, ultimately, the way we entered the race at Monza left the door open to that situation.”
“After Monza, three goals: we must ensure that everything that happens on the track does not come at the expense of the team.”
“Second goal, how to win both championships, with both drivers committed to helping?”
“But what we do not want to do is win recklessly.”
“These are the three topics and they define how we will race in Baku. It will be updated after Baku.”
Stella stated that both McLaren drivers had embraced the change in philosophy.
“The conversations have been very collaborative. Even when I asked Oscar: ‘Would you be willing to give up a win?’ He replied: ‘It’s painful, but if it’s the right thing to do now, I’ll do it.’ All drivers are programmed to aim for victory. So, I’m always very impressed by the level of team spirit, maturity, and collaboration we’ve found during this period.”
Stella declined to give details on the type of choices that might be made in favor of Norris “to not give ammunition to our rivals to counter us,” but said decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis to determine if interference between the two drivers was “helpful.”
And he emphasized that Norris agreed with the idea of not doing everything to act in his favor in every way.
“Lando wants to win because he deserves victory on the track. It’s okay to be occasionally supported by his teammate, but you don’t want to consistently use means to adjust the race just for the sake of points while your teammate scores in a way that he deserves. That’s not how McLaren wants to win, nor how Lando wants to win.”
“If I ask Lando, he would say: ‘I am comfortable if at Abu Dhabi I miss the title by a few points that I could have obtained through certain actions, but if those actions were not right at the time, then, you know what? We stay strong as a team, the team is stable and cohesive, we’ll try our luck next year.'”
In the constructors’ championship, McLaren is just eight points behind Red Bull and could take the lead this weekend. Ferrari is in third place, 31 points behind McLaren.
“We must be careful not to lose sight of the fact that the constructors’ title is at least a three-headed quest, while we focus the conversation and attention on the drivers.”
Stella stated that this modified approach by McLaren differed from the so-called “papaya rules,” a term used by Norris’s engineer, Will Joseph, on the team radio in Italy to describe the rules of engagement between drivers on the track.
“The papaya rules are solely about racing safely, without contact between the two McLarens, and respectfully. That’s all.”
“It’s just a quick way to remind our drivers: ‘Guys, don’t take too many risks fighting each other.'”
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McLaren F1 chooses to prioritize Norris for the title McLaren F1 chooses to prioritize Norris for the title. f1 2024 McLaren F1 chooses to prioritize Norris for the title
