Oscar Piastri says he would be willing to give up a potential victory in the sprint race of Formula 1’s Brazilian Grand Prix to help McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in the championship, despite getting pole position in sprint qualifying on Friday.
Norris trails title favourite Max Verstappen by 47 points after taking 10 out of the Dutchman’s lead in Mexico, and the Briton will have to increase the rate of points he is gaining if he is to overhaul the Red Bull driver by Abu Dhabi’s season finale.
McLaren decided at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix to support Norris in his title bid, with Piastri expected to help his team-mate if the situation called for it. At the time McLaren said Norris wouldn’t be asked to sacrifice grand prix victories for Norris. But the Australian says he wouldn’t have a problem with handing Norris a less important sprint win, with a one-point difference between each position in the top eight.
“We’ll see what the pace is like tomorrow for both of us,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1. “I think first and second is the first objective, and then we’ll see what the order it is.
“I know Lando is in the running for the drivers’ standings, and for the team it doesn’t matter which way around we are.”
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Asked if he would give away a victory, he replied: “Yes, I’ve said I would when we had these discussions. It would be nice to win, but it’s a one-point difference and it’s not the main race, so we’ll see.
“Lando needs the points in the driver standings a lot more than I do. Of course, I still want to win, so I put in the effort and have good pace that I’m sure that won’t go unnoticed.”
Piastri grabbed Sao Paulo’s sprint pole over Norris by a mere 0.029s as McLaren secured a front-row lockout, which has been somewhat of a return to one-lap form for Piastri after struggling to match Norris in qualifying lately.
“I think it was coming together maybe a bit better than we expected, but I think we felt pretty comfortable after FP1 this morning,” he explained.
“The [resurfaced] track was just moving on really quickly, it was like a second and a half quicker by the end. The last lap on softs, they hung on for a second lap, which was nice, and I managed to put it on pole.”
Piastri said McLaren’s new rear wing, which is an option in between its low- and medium-downforce wings, delivered as expected and was a nice little boost on a weekend the papaya team’s direct rivals didn’t bring upgrades.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” he said. “It’s a constant push from the team to try and get the car even quicker, and this wing is a nice new upgrade for us here. We’re pretty happy with it.”
