Oscar Piastri admits that “team orders are not that fun” but the McLaren driver is happy to play a supporting role for teammate Lando Norris, realizing his team’s “bigger picture”.
With eight races remaining on the F1 calendar, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella confirmed this week that the team would prioritize Norris, who sits 62 points behind reigning world champion Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ standings.
Although 106 points adrift in the championship, Piastri mathematically remains in contention for the world title, although the Aussie’s chances of overhauling his rivals and seizing the crown are undeniably remote given the circumstances.
The prospect of team orders is not an easy pill to swallow for any driver, and Piastri is no exception. But the 23-year-old understands that McLaren’s decision to favour one driver over the other when necessary is in the team’s best interests.
“It has obviously been something we have discussed a lot in the last few days,” he told Motorsport.com ahead of this weekend’s round of racing in Baku.
“Selfishly, as a driver in my own interests, of course, team orders are not that fun. But in saying that I realise there is a much bigger picture here than just myself.
“I race for a team that has given me my opportunity in F1 and given me the opportunity to win races in Formula 1 within 18 months of being here, so I have a lot of gratitude for that.
“But again, the bigger picture is about much more than just me. We are trying to achieve both championships which for the team is an incredibly big thing.
“Of course, the Constructors is one thing, but if you have the opportunity to win both championships in a year then as a team it is a massive objective to try and win both.
“Being selfish, I would prefer to not have it, but I am very aware it is not all about me and I’m happy to play a supporting role at this point in the season.
“I think any earlier in the season it would have probably been excessive, but I think now it is an appropriate time to try and help the team win both championships.”
©McLaren
Piastri also addressed the idea of whether he would have to regularly sacrifice race wins, in response to comments from Norris, who stated that team orders would not force Piastri to hand over wins.
“It still needs some more discussion, but I think the main point is it’s not just me pulling over for Lando at every single race,” he said. “That is how none of us – including Lando – want to go racing.
“Trying to go through all the scenarios is impossible and of course we don’t want to discuss that publicly.
“The main one is that if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded and that is of course where it becomes a bit tricky still and we need to continue discussing that.
“But it is not simply a blanket ‘I’m going to be behind Lando in every single race’. I still have things that I want to achieve in the championship and try to boost my standing in the championship.”
©McLaren
Revisiting events at the Italian Grand Prix last time out, where Piastri’s bold first-lap pass on Norris was one of the triggers for McLaren’s decision to implement team orders, he defended the move but conceded that under the new rules, such overtakes might be handled differently in the future.
“In those exact same scenarios some things would be different,” added the winner of this year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
“In those circumstances what I did was fine. I thought it was a good move and of course, the consequence of coming out of the corner in first and third is not what we want as a team.
“Of course, it takes both of our co-operation to make sure that result doesn’t happen again but in those circumstances, it was all by the book, there was nothing wrong with that, but it was purely just that the result out of the corner was not exactly what we wanted.
“In saying that, the result at the end of the race in my opinion wasn’t dictated because of that, it was because Ferrari pulled off a big gamble on strategy and without that with Charles, we would have still finished first and second.”
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