McLaren has recently sent some signals that they are preparing to issue team orders for Oscar Piastri to support Lando Norris in his pursuit of the Driver’s Championship title.

At this point, ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Norris sits just 62 points behind the reigning champion and championship leader Max Verstappen. Meanwhile, Piastri is 106 points behind ten Verstappen and it is not very likely for him to catch up on the Dutchman.

Despite, McLaren being strongly focused on winning the Constructor’s Championship, they also see the possibility to capture both titles as even Verstappen is now struggling with his RB20. 

The topic of team orders gained momentum after the Italian Grand Prix in Monza two weeks back, where Piastri passed pole-sitter Norris on the first lap in a very unfortunate way, because of what Norris lost one more position to Charles Leclerc. With Verstappen finishing way behind both McLarens in P6, the so-called ‘papaya rules’ became a big topic as it doesn’t seem like the Woking-based team wants to win both of the championships.

The Team Principal of McLaren, Andrea Stella, spoke about the current situation regarding changes of the ‘papaya rules’ to BBC Sport.

"We [will] bias our support to Lando but we want to do it without too much compromise on our principles," said Stella.

"Our principles are that the team’s interest always comes first. 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 as a matter of fact, the way we entered the race in Monza left the door open for this situation.

"The conversations [with Oscar] have been very collaborative.

"Even when I said to Oscar: 'Would you be available to give up a victory?' He said: 'It's painful, but if it's the right thing to do now, I will do it'.

"Every driver is hard-wired to go for a victory. So I am very impressed by the level of team spirit and maturity and collaboration that we found in this period."