Bitter-sweet McLaren 1-2 after race in Hungary
- pitwallstories
- Jul 25, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 26, 2024
Oscar Piastri claims his debut Grand Prix victory in Hungary after strategy misunderstandings and an unfolding drama with teammate Lando Norris.
The Hungaroring is fairly known for its challenging layout that has always kept the fans on their toes for its unpredictable outcomes. This year was no exception. The battle for the podium was intense, and the crowd's energy was palpable as the drivers fought for every position.
A papaya Saturday
An exciting qualifying day gave the spectators of the Hungaroring great expectations for the day of Sunday. After Lando Norris claimed pole position, he was followed by his teammate Oscar Piastri who then gave the McLaren team a front row lock-up for race day.
As if emerging from a dark abyss since the last few races, both Ferraris managed to make it to Q3, with Carlos Sainz attentively behind Max Verstappen in fourth and Charles Leclerc tightly secured behind the winner of the last Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton, in sixth position.
The last two rows were then occupied by both drivers of Aston Martin and Visa Cash App RB F1 Team, completing the top ten starters for the Hungarian GP.
A papaya Sunday
A confusing start kicked off the Hungarian race as both McLaren drivers and Max Verstappen found themselves fighting for first position in turn 1. Eventually Oscar Piastri was successful, gaining the position of leader of the race as Verstappen went wide on the outside just to throw himself back in ahead of Norris.
As the next corners arrived, much more action was displayed by the group in the center and even by Charles Leclerc, who managed to overtake teammate Carlos Sainz for fifth place. In the meantime, race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, rationally told his driver to give back the position to Norris as the threat of a penalty was expected. Eventually Verstappen obeyed but it only fueled his determination, immediately chasing down Norris to fight back for the position.
As race leader Oscar Piastri was continuing to grow his gap from the rest of the drivers, the group in the middle started to box to change tyres, also allowing drivers like Perez and Russell, who were coming out of a very difficult qualifying, to gain more and more positions.
Lap 17, after Hamilton was the first to pit of the front-runners, was when things started to go in a different direction for McLaren, from a strategy point of view. Driver number 4 was asked to pit before the leader of the race, immediately confusing the public that had expected a completely different strategy play-out. Piastri copied his teammate but only a lap later, changed into a hard compound and rejoined the race ahead of Norris, in fourth position.
A series of events and choices later allowed Leclerc to become the new leader of the race and he managed to do so, continuing with a great stint right before he was asked to box.
In lap 33, race leader Piastri, had something of a moment when he went off track but managed to keep the position as Hamilton and Verstappen were attached to him only a few seconds behind.
The battle between Hamilton and the current world champion allowed Norris to maintain a possible position on the podium after a pit stop that wasn’t of the Dutchman’s liking, who expressed his unhappiness of having been undercut.
Norris’ pit then followed, making him come out in fourth position, and then after two laps, the other McLaren driver boxed as well, emerging from the pits behind his teammate in third.
It was around these laps that the McLaren team’s strategy started to falter.
Twenty laps to go and Piastri was informed that they would swap positions “once you get to Lando”, which of course, wasn’t taken very well by the Briton. A series of team radios was directed to Norris about tyre management yet the gap between him and Piastri had grown up to four seconds.
“We know you’ll do the right thing”, the team radio that finally made the British driver respond with a “Tell him to catch up then please.”
Amidst this papaya intra-team drama, Verstappen had used DRS to surpass Leclerc and then managed to catch up with Hamilton, engaging in a very heated battle for third position.
Of course Hamilton responded to the battle with defensive moves that Verstappen didn’t appreciate, reacting with another attack only to lock up and quite literally bouncing out of the track, dropping down to fifth.
After that the race seemed to be done with surprises as even the McLaren drama seemed to have settled down. In fact, by lap 68, Norris finally gave back the position to his teammate.
“I know what Oscar’s done for me in the past [...] I got told to let him past and I did. It’s always tough when you’re fighting for a win and a win means so much to me but also to him. I just had to try and put myself in his shoes [...] I had to do what’s right.”
Lando’s words after the race, wearing the Pirelli hat with ‘second place’ embroidered on it.
And so it ended like this the Hungarian Grand Prix: a maiden win for the 23 year old Oscar Piastri and a 1-2 finish for the McLaren Formula 1 Team, something that they haven't celebrated since Monza 2021 when Danny Ric was holding the first place trophy up high while looking down at his former teammate Lando Norris, on the second step of the podium.
"[It's] very, very special." said Piastri "This is really the day I dreamed of as a kid, standing on the top step of an F1 podium. Obviously a bit complicated at the end but I put myself in the right position at the start, and thank you to the team for an amazing effort, and amazing car. It’s a hell of a lot of fun racing for McLaren so I can’t thank them enough for giving me the opportunity to be in F1, and to be able to win together 18 months in, is an incredible feeling."
Written by Fran
