McLaren are to prioritise Lando Norris over team-mate Oscar Piastri in their bid to win both Formula 1 world championships this year.

But team principal Andrea Stella said any actions taken to back Norris in the drivers’ title chase would happen only within the team’s principles of sportsmanship and fairness.

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

Norris heads into this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix 62 points behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship with a maximum of 232 still available.

Piastri is in fourth place in the championship, 106 points behind Verstappen.

Stella, speaking in an exclusive interview, 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.”

Until now, McLaren had allowed Norris and Piastri to race each other without interference from the team.

The shift in policy towards finding ways to boost Norris’ chances of beating Verstappen to the drivers’ title comes after a series of meetings between McLaren bosses and their drivers following the Italian Grand Prix.

In Monza, Norris and Piastri qualified first and second but the Australian overtook the Briton on the first lap and the incident led to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc getting between the two McLarens. Leclerc went on to win the race, from Piastri and Norris. Verstappen finished an uncompetitive sixth.

Stella said: “What we don’t want to see any more 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 comes 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.”