For Oscar Piastri, taking his debut Formula One victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix will be a moment long to savour, yet it was one that for his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, could not have been more painful, secured through the furiously gritted teeth of the British driver who was forced to concede a potential win by playing the team game. Pleasure and pain then in what was an enormously entertaining F1 soap opera in Budapest.
McLaren took a one-two at the Hungaroring in a fascinating examination of the complexities of managing the fiercely competitive urges of drivers, of the needs of the team, of fairness, of whether a sense of comradeship might be engendered between the fierce clashing of egos across a garage. For all the emphasis in F1 on mechanical prowess, what played out was an all too human tale. Who, after all, would find it easy to voluntarily give up such a victory?
Team orders are nothing new in F1, nor are they necessarily obeyed, as Sebastian Vettel famously demonstrated in the ‘Multi-21’ incident at Malaysia in 2013 to take a controversial victory. Vettel was ruthless at the time, a trait that came to be admired by his team and one shared by countless champions. Doubtless these were factors going through Norris’s mind, not least given recent accusations that the British driver is not steely enough to be a champion.
The race, only the 35th for Piastri, had all but belonged to the 23-year-old from Melbourne, who had taken the lead from second on the grid behind Norris on the opening lap. But when McLaren later pitted Norris before his teammate, to cover off Lewis Hamilton who finished third, it gave the British driver the lead – with the expectation he would then hand the place back to Piastri.
Knowing every point might be vital in chasing down Max Verstappen in the championship race, Norris was understandably reluctant to surrender the position.
He wanted the points and was still simmering from a poor start that he later acknowledged had cost him the potential win, and was markedly very reluctant to roll over. While Piastri faced the cold-sweat consideration that it was his only error that instigated the drama when, with a three-second lead, a minor off on lap 33 had allowed Norris to close to within a second.
It left Norris on his wing and when the final stops occurred after the Australian pitted, he emerged behind his teammate.
McLaren informed him he would be given the place back, having lost out to the undercut they had given Norris only to forestall Hamilton. What followed was an almost one-way conversation from team to Norris, one ostensibly calling the shots but the other with his hands on the wheel.
“We would like you to re-establish the order at your convenience,” Norris’s race engineer, Will Joseph, said in a relaxed tone. The gap, however, was more than three seconds and Norris did not ease up. “Once you get to Lando we will swap position,” Piastri’s race engineer, the former Olympic rowing silver medallist Tom Stallard, told him. The third voice in what was beginning to resemble an entertainingly tetchy phone-in.
The tension duly ratcheted up and Norris pointedly made no effort to slow up and the tone changed. “I know you will do the right thing,” Joseph said on lap 58, almost pleading. “Just remember every single Sunday morning meeting we have,” he beseeched in reference to the pre-agreed plans for exactly this scenario.
“Well tell him to catch up then please,” Norris shot back tersely. The laps fell away and Joseph switched to bargaining. “The way to win a championship is not by yourself, it’s with the team, you are going to need Oscar and you are going to need the team,” he said with five laps to go.
This was gloriously tense until, with what was doubtless a huge sigh of relief on the McLaren pit wall, with three laps to go, Norris pulled over on the main straight to let his teammate past and the pair took the flag line astern. Honour had been maintained and for all that many still find team orders distasteful they are part and parcel of the sport and Norris did the right thing.
McLaren must now consider quite how they manage the situation if Norris’s efforts to catch Verstappen are to be prioritised. The team have been out of the title fight for years but are back now and with it comes the complex problem of a winning car and two genuinely competitive drivers. Verstappen’s lead over Norris now stands at 76 points.
McLaren’s debrief will be lively, as it will be at Red Bull as Verstappen too contributed to quite a show in Budapest. The world champion’s poor temper throughout was as clamorous as Norris’s quiet seething was constrained. Upgrades intended to give Verstappen the edge failed to deliver and he spent the race complaining about the handling of his car and furious at his team’s strategy. It ended in clumsy ignominy. Looking to make up places he charged at Hamilton on lap 63 and hit the British driver at turn one, launching his Red Bull into the air, but was not penalised.
Of greatest concern for Verstappen, however, will be that for all his title lead, even as the McLaren drama played out, both cars comfortably had the edge on him in Budapest.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were fourth and sixth for Ferrari, Sergio Pérez seventh for Red Bull, George Russell eighth for Mercedes, Yuki Tsunoda ninth for RB and Lance Stroll 10th for Aston Martin.
