Brown opens up on McLaren’s ‘difficult’ team orders plight

McLaren boss Zak Brown has acknowledged that it would be a challenging decision for the team to instruct Oscar Piastri to hand over a race win to his teammate Lando Norris, despite the team’s commitment to helping the latter close the gap to Max Verstappen in the drivers' championship.

With seven races remaining in the season, McLaren is keen to support Norris in his championship fight, where he trails Verstappen by 59 points.

Last weekend in Baku, Piastri took a commanding win while Norris battled his way to fourth place after a difficult qualifying session left him starting outside the top 10.

Ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, Piastri is 91 points behind in the Drivers’ standings and 32 points adrift of Norris, a position that mathematically keeps the Aussie in the title fight.

When questioned about whether McLaren would consider issuing team orders to decide a race win, Brown acknowledged the magnitude of the decision in the context of a driver’s competitive nature.

• Read also: Norris feeling positive but wary of fast Ferrari pace

“Ultimately, that’ll be Andrea's [Stella] call,” explained the McLaren Racing CEO.

“I think handing off a race win is a pretty difficult thing to do. So you have to look at the circumstances.

“We’re going to take it one race set at a time. I think that's a pretty big ask of a Grand Prix driver.”

So far this season, Norris and Piastri have each secured two race wins. While Norris is being prioritized in the championship battle due to his closer proximity to Verstappen in the standings, Brown made it clear that the British driver does not want to be gifted victories.

“I think Lando wants to win the championship, if he can, the right way,” he said.

“So I think we still have a lot of racing to go. I have to look at the circumstances - but I think if Oscar goes out and earns it, I'm not sure Lando wants to inherit a victory that way anyway.”

Although McLaren is committed to supporting Norris’ championship challenge, Brown is also mindful of Piastri’s impressive rookie season.

“Anything we can now do to help Lando, we’ll do that, and whether that's strategically,” he added.

“We don't want to obviously compromise Oscar's results because he's having an awesome season and has a battle of his own.

“But if there are things that we can do that support Lando, that's what we'll do.”

As McLaren navigates the final stretch of the season, the team faces the delicate balance of supporting Norris’ title aspirations while allowing Piastri to continue his own successful campaign.

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