ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 CEO Zak Brown says McLaren could use team orders to manage the Formula 1 title fight if one of its drivers has a \u201csignificantly better chance\u201d to win in Sunday\u2019s decisive Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris leads the standings by 12 points from Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen, with Norris\u2019 teammate Oscar Piastri four points further back. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s prompted speculation that Piastri could be asked to move over for Norris, sacrificing his own slight championship chance, if it appears that Verstappen is heading for a race win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the sense of team orders, as long as both drivers have a chance to win the world championship, which they clearly do sitting here right now, then it\u2019s business as usual. They\u2019re free to race. Obviously, we\u2019ll be practical and realistic,\u201d Brown said Friday. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf, as the weekend develops, as the race develops, it becomes clear that one has a significantly better chance than the other, then we\u2019re a team that wants to win the drivers\u2019 championship and we will race accordingly, to do whatever we can to get that driver in front to try and win the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown didn\u2019t say what sort of chance would qualify as \u201csignificantly better,\u201d but indicated that orders would only come into play if \u201cit becomes clear that both (Norris and Piastri) can\u2019t\u201d win.<\/p>\n
The two McLaren drivers denied Thursday that there had been any discussions about team orders. Norris said he \u201cwould love\u201d his teammate to help him out, and that he believed he would aid Piastri if the roles were reversed, but added that he didn\u2019t want to make that request.<\/p>\n
Asked if he believed Piastri would comply with an order to help out Norris, Brown said: \u201cYes. Our drivers have always complied with team wishes, just as we comply with their wishes.\u201d He added: \u201dI\u2019ve got no doubt either of our drivers will continue to race as they\u2019ve done brilliantly, in the best interest of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 CEO Zak Brown says McLaren could use team orders to manage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-327103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}