Oscar Piastri confirmed McLaren have changed how they will prioritise their drivers over the remaining rounds of the championship.
However the Hungarian Grand Prix winner said there are some circumstances in which he will not be instructed to help his team mate Lando Norris in his championship bid.
Norris is 62 points behind championship leader Max Verstappen with eight rounds remaining and up to 232 points available. Piastri is 106 points off the lead.
McLaren has not imposed team orders on Piastri to help Norris in the championship until now. But team principal Andrea Stella confirmed ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix they will prioritise Norris from now on.
“The team have asked me to help out and I have said for the last few races that if I was asked then I would,” Piastri told the official F1 channel today. “Of course, naturally as a driver, it’s never an easy thing or a simple thing to agree to. But again, there’s a much bigger picture at play than just myself.
“So I’m still coming out here to try and achieve the best results that I can and put myself in a good position to score a lot of points for myself and also the team. But I know that if there’s some way of helping the points for Lando, then I will do that.”
However Piastri said the team won’t necessarily tell him to let Norris win if he is significantly ahead of his team mate.
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“It’s something that we need to speak about a little bit more. For the whole team, it is very much within our values that we want to avoid that if we can. I know after speaking with with Lando and Andrea that nobody wants to see the race dictated by that, and that includes Lando himself.
“So especially at this point with still a big gap, it ultimately is up to the team to decide if that’s what we do, and I know that if the call comes that’s what I’ll be doing. But it’s not set in stone that I will give up the race no matter what the circumstances are.
“So there is still some degree of movement and flexibility because ultimately we all agree that as a team, if someone has done a clearly better job on the weekend then that still deserves to be rewarded. And of course, if it’s Lando, then obviously in my championship position, then I’m not going to be doing that.
“But if it was that way, if my team was beating me by 10 seconds, I wouldn’t then want that and expect that in return. So I think we’re all very…
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