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Mclaren has announced that they will prioritize their star driver Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri in the title bid for the remaining eight races of the season. Norris is Max Verstappen's closest competitor in the drivers' standings. He narrowed the gap to 62 points at the last round in Italy.
Ahead of this weekend's race in Azerbaijan, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said backed Piastri over Lando Norris. Max Verstappen is currently leading the F1 standings in 2024 with 303 points. Lando Norris is ranked second with 241 points while Oscar Piastri is on 4th position with 197 points. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc is in third position.
"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. 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 comes first, and these are the situations that above all we need to fix because eventually, as a matter of fact, the way we entered the race in Monza left the door open to this situation," Stella told BBC Sport.
"After Monza, three objectives: we need to make sure that anything that happens on track is not to the detriment of the team. Second objective, how do we win both championships, both drivers committed to help? But what we don't want to do is win in a reckless way. Those are the three topics, and they define the way we go racing in Baku. This will be updated after Baku," Stella added.
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Piastri backed Mclaren's decision to ask him to play a supporting role.
"There is still some degree of movement and flexibility” around how much he will assist, depending on the situation in any given race. The team have asked me to help out and I’ve said for the last few races that if I was asked, then I would,” he commented. “Of course, naturally as a driver it’s never an easy thing, or simple thing, to agree to. There’s a much bigger picture in play than just myself. I’m still coming out here to try and achieve the best results I can and put myself in a good position to just score a lot of points for myself and also the team. I know that if there are some ways of helping the points for Lando, then I’ll do that," said Piastri confirming he will play the supporting role
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