Lando Norris: I do not expect Oscar Piastri to give up wins but I am grateful McLaren will favour me

Lando Norris says he does not want to be gifted a world championship but is grateful to McLaren and team-mate Oscar Piastri for agreeing to favour him over the remainder of his title pursuit.

The British driver has cut Max Verstappen’s lead by 16 points over the last two races and arrives in Baku this weekend 62 points adrift of the three-time world champion.

Norris could be 17 points better off if McLaren had favoured him in previous races, including at Monza a fortnight ago where the Briton was fighting for the win but ended up finishing third behind Piastri after the Australian’s opportunistic opening-lap move.

The 24-year-old allowed Piastri to take his maiden victory in F1 in Hungary after McLaren ordered him to slow down and let his team-mate through after he gained the lead by an undercut rather than an overtake.

Both drivers have confirmed that an agreement has been reached to favour Norris in his pursuit of Verstappen but the Briton does not want to be handed victories by his team-mate.

“No [he won’t be giving me wins],” Norris said. “Second and third [as in Monza] would probably be switched around. In general he will be helping me probably for lower positions. But if he has fought for a win and is deserving of a win then he deserves to win.

“I don’t want to be given a championship. Yes, it would be nice to have a championship and short term it would feel amazing. I don’t think you would be proud of that in the long run.

“That is not how I want to win it, I want to win it by fighting Max, beating Max and my competitors and being the best driver on track.”

Norris says the debate around Piastri’s move in Monza has been “resolved” and, while the particulars of the new agreement to lean towards the British driver are still being ironed out, he says the team still do not have a No 1 driver.

“There will be certain times where it is not smart to battle. You have to go into lap one with the right approach which is to go forwards,” Norris said.

“Monza was a different case and we have resolved that.

“Things have been clarified and cleared up. We came out of turn one [in Monza] first and third and we had a big gap going into the corner.

“That’s not how we should have gone racing there. There are clearer instructions on how we can race each other. That has been cleared up.

“We are not classing it as number one and two and I don’t think we ever will. But in terms of our process there is a bias towards helping me.”

Piastri, in his second season in Formula One, is happy with the agreement.

“It still needs some more discussion [about changing places] but the main point is it’s not me going to be pulling over for Lando every single race because none of us, including Lando, wants to go racing in that way,” Piastri said.

“Selfishly as a driver I have my own interests and team orders are not that fun. But in saying that I realise there is a bigger picture here than just myself.

“It’s not just about me and I am happy to play a supporting role at this point of the season.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren’s team principal, has confirmed that senior talks over the last fortnight have resulted in the change of policy.

Stella believes adopting this new strategy will give the team a better chance of trying to win both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.

“The overall concept is we are incredibly determined to win, but we want to win in the right way,” Stella told the BBC.

“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.

“What we don’t want to see anymore 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 come 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.”

Verstappen claimed after Monza that his hopes of winning a fourth straight title were now “not realistic” despite his sizeable lead.

Norris dismissed that, saying: “That is just Max saying what he wants. He is still leading by 60-odd points.

“I have eight races to catch 60-something points and it is not easy to do that even if I win every race. He is the one in a better position. I would rather be in his position than my position.”

Verstappen is on a run of six races without a win and admits Red Bull are still working to understand their issues.

“We still have a lot of work to do but in a way Monza was positive to learn about the car,” Verstappen said.