Norris wants title win ‘by fighting and beating’ Verstappen

Lando Norris says he wants to try to earn the world title on merit, despite McLaren asking his team-mate Oscar Piastri to support the Briton if necessary.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told BBC Sport the team would “bias” their operations towards Norris as they seek to win the drivers’ title as well as the constructors’ championship this season.

Norris said he was “thankful” for the team’s decision but said: “I don’t want to be given a championship.

“Yes, it would be great to have a championship, and short term you feel amazing, but I don’t think you’d be proud of that in the long run. It’s not how I want to win a championship.”

Norris heads into this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix 62 points behind championship leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull, with a maximum of 232 points available in the remaining eight races.

McLaren are just eight points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, with Ferrari a further 31 adrift.

Norris added: “I want to win it by fighting against Max and beating Max, beating my competitors and proving I’m the best on track. That’s how I want to race.”

Stella made it clear that McLaren had not decided to ask Piastri to back Norris under any circumstances.

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

“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.”

Piastri said: “The team have asked me to help out, and I’ve said for the last few races that if I was asked, then I would.

“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 in play than just myself.”

Both Norris and Piastri played down the idea the Australian might be asked to sacrifice a win for his team-mate.

Norris said: “Probably not. In general, probably for lower positions, but if he’s fought for a win and he’s deserving of a win, then he deserves to win.

“Oscar is still fighting for his own racing, he’s still going out and doing his stuff. And it could be that there’s no time this year that he needs to help me.

“It’s more that I’ve got Oscar’s help when needs be, but he’s still going out with that intent of every session of fighting for himself.”

Piastri, 23, said: “It still needs some more discussions but the main point is it’s not just going to be me pulling over for Lando every race because that’s how none of us, including Lando, want to race.

“Trying to go through all the scenarios is impossible. We don’t want to discuss that publicly, but the main one is if we feel one has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded. And that’s where it becomes a little bit tricky still.”

Norris needs to gain an average of just under eight points a weekend over the remaining eight grands prix to beat Verstappen to the title.

He has done that over the last two races in the Netherlands and Italy, but it remains a tall order as the Dutchman remains the highest scoring driver over the last 10 races.

Verstappen struggled at the last race in Italy, qualifying seventh and finishing sixth, and has not won for six races. But he has won seven races this season and no other driver has more than two victories.

Verstappen said: “Monza wasn’t good for us. We have analysed a lot of things and it’s time to try to be better and let’s see how this weekend will go.

“We learned a lot from Monza, but it is a work in progress and it’s not like we can turn these things around from one to the other weekend. But we are working on it.

“I hope from now we can shift it in the right direction. How long that will take, I don’t know. But I believe we can do a much better job than we did in Monza and the last few races.”

The 26-year-old said after the race in Italy that both titles were “not realistic” based on Red Bull’s form there.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton added Verstappen was “still a very long way ahead”.

McLaren’s decision to change their philosophy of allowing their drivers to race came after doing so backfired in Italy.

Having qualified one-two, Piastri overtook Norris on the first lap in a move that allowed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to sneak into second place, from where he went on to win.

Leclerc has been on pole in Baku for the last three years and has to be considered a strong contender for success on Sunday.

He said: “I would expect quite a good weekend for us but we don’t expect to be at the level of McLaren or Red Bull.”

Mercedes, meanwhile, have decided to revert to an older-specification floor this weekend because their form has slipped since a new floor was introduced at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Hamilton said there could be a number of reasons for Mercedes’ drop-off since they won three of four races in a month in June and July.

But he added: “”My gut’s telling me it’s probably the upgrade.”

Team-mate George Russell added: “The upgrade wasn’t a substantial performance improvement and sometimes you’ve got to look at things just objectively. We brought a new floor, we dropped in performance and that was the main thing that changed.”