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“Sportsmanship for us is important in the overall way we go racing. And then we want to be fair to both drivers,” the Italian said.

But he wanted McLaren to avoid a repeat of the situation in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza when Norris lined up on pole with Piastri second on the grid, with both ultimately losing out to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

In that race, Piastri overtook Norris at the start with Leclerc grabbing second place from the Briton, who had to slow, before the Monaco driver went on to win on strategy.

Norris said on Thursday that the McLaren reset was more likely to occur over battles for lower positions rather than if he and Piastri were running first and second.

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“He’s [Piastri] 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,” said Norris. “It’s more that I’ve got Oscar’s help when needs be.

“If he’s fought for a win, and he’s deserving of a win, then he deserves to win.

“If he goes out and he’s better than me, and performs better than me, and outqualifies me, and he wins a race, that’s because he’s done a better job.”

Norris is second in the drivers’ standings, 62 points behind Red Bull’s Verstappen with eight rounds remaining, plus three sprint races, while Piastri is fourth, 106 points off the lead with a maximum 232 points still to play for.

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

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

The former Ferrari engineer said both Norris and bayside Melbourne product Piastri had accepted the situation.

“The conversations have been very collaborative,” he said.

“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.’”

AAP, Reuters