McLaren prepared to favour Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri in "50-50 situations"

McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella has revealed they will look to favour Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri “when it’s a 50-50 decision”.

Norris is now 70 points behind Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship with nine rounds remaining.

While Verstappen’s lead is still healthy, McLaren’s dominant display at the Dutch Grand Prix could be a cause for concern.

Norris won by over 22 second at Zandvoort, and with tracks like Singapore and Baku coming up, where McLaren are expected to struggle, Verstappen’s lead could be significantly less by the time F1 heads to the Americas.

One topic of discussion in recent rounds has been McLaren prioritising Norris and potentially making him the ‘number one driver’.

While Stella is keen to avoid a clear hierarchy, he conceded Norris could be favoured as he looks to hunt down Verstappen in the championship.

“We always have conversations around team orders from race one because you always want to enter a race having clarity as to how we are going to manage the internal competition between the two drivers,” he said on Sunday at Zandvoort, where Crash.net were present in the paddock.

“So, the conversations about team orders happens throughout the season. But then you have to take this conversation within the context of what is, for instance, the driver's classification. In general, our approach is to be fair, to have, like we say, integrity in the way we go racing.

“And I keep saying that I've known no driver that wants to be number one out of a contract. Drivers want to be number one because they are fast on track. And then when you are fast on track, definitely you want to be supported by the team when it's a 50-50 decision.”

Stella believes having a clear ‘number one’ and ‘number two’ driver isn’t healthy for the team and that any team order would have to be situational.

“Or, you know, like you have eight good weekends and it's a weekend in which you are struggling a little bit,” he added. “Then the team can assist, right? But there's no driver that, like, we have nine races ahead of us and we create a number one driver.

“And then what do we do? All the favours to the number one driver. This is not a healthy way of running a team. But for every race, we analyze the situations. And in the 50-50 situations or in those cases in which, in this case, Lando may need a bit of extra support from the team, we are going to give it.

“But the team includes Oscar. Like, the team should not do things that don't look reasonable to Oscar. We are in this together. You don't go a team and a driver and the other driver kind of follows despite him. He needs to be part of this conversation and he needs to be in agreement with what we think is the way forward.”