It's Official: McLaren Announces No.1 Driver To Push For Championship Win

Saajan Jogia | Sep 12, 2024

Nov 17, 2023; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; McLaren F1 drivers Lando Norris (4) of Great Britain and Oscar Piastri (81) of Australia drive during practice 3 at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images / Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

In a recent interview, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella officially revealed that the team will be backing Lando Norris for a championship victory as he trails Red Bull's Max Verstappen by 62 points in the Drivers' Standings, a gap that remains achievable over the next eight Grands Prix. Oscar Piastri has also admitted to sacrificing his race victory to prioritize team interests.

McLaren arrives at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the hope of overtaking Red Bull in the Constructors' Championship this weekend, considering the gap, which narrowed down to just eight points after the Italian Grand Prix. However, McLaren has also laid out guidelines for both its drivers to avoid a repeat of the first lap scenario at Monza.

Despite Norris securing pole position for the Italian GP, Piastri made an aggressive move in the first lap to overtake his teammate, leading to both Papaya drivers fighting for the top position. The move offered Ferrari's Charles Leclerc a window to overtake Norris. Both McLaren drivers allowed him to stay within reach, ultimately allowing him to win the race by choosing a one-stop strategy while McLaren went for two.

Piastri trails championship leader Verstappen by 106 points. Though it seems a bit far-fetched considering Leclerc and Norris are ahead of him, he remains within mathematical reach for a championship win. Stella told BBC Sport in an interview that McLaren would prioritize Norris over Piastri only if it aligned with the team's principles. He said:

"The overall concept is we are incredibly determined to win, but we want to win in the right way.

"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."

The Italian team boss made it clear that he does not intend to witness a repeat of what happened at Monza because the team's interests come above everything else. He added:

"What we don't want to see any more 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 this situation.

"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."

However, prioritizing the team's interests may sometimes come at the expense of the driver's interests. Stella revealed that Piastri has agreed to sacrifice a race victory if a situation were to arise. McLaren has upped its ante to seize every opportunity for a championship win, especially after considering Red Bull's current struggles with its title contender. He said:

"The conversations 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 always very impressed by the level of team spirit and maturity and collaboration that we found in this period."

Stella declined to provide specifics about the types of choices that could be made to benefit Norris, but he mentioned that the team's decisions would be situational. He explained:

"Lando wants to win because he deserved the victory on track.

"It's OK to be occasionally supported by your team-mate, but you don't want to use, systematically, ways of adjusting the race just for the sake of the points when your team-mate is scoring in a way that he deserves. This is not the way McLaren want to win, or the way Lando wants to win.

"If I ask Lando, he would say: 'I am comfortable if in Abu Dhabi [at the end of the season] I miss a few points that I could have got with some actions, but if those actions were not right at the time, then, you know what? We keep strong as a team, the team is stable and cohesive, we will give it a go next year'.

"We need to be careful that while we focus the conversation and the attention on to the drivers’, we don't lose sight on the fact that the constructors’ is at least a three-headed quest."

Elaborating on the "papaya rules" slogan, the team principal said:

"The 'papaya rules' only have to do with racing with no risks, no contact between the two McLarens and respectfully. That's it.

"It's just a quick way to remind our drivers, 'Guys, don't take too much risk in fighting each other'."