Hungary once again played scene to McLaren controversy on Sunday as divergent strategies saw Lando Norris recover from a poor start to clinch victory and, crucially, gain further ground on Oscar Piastri in the 2025 F1 title race.
This was not the drama of 2024, where Norris furiously rejected a team order to allow Piastri through, before eventually ceding to McLaren’s increasingly desperate pleas over team radio.
But the return to Hungary 12 months on saw the spotlight shine brightly on McLaren anyway, this time with questions over whether it was Piastri who was unfairly dealt with by the team on his way to second-place.
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Piastri & Norris INCHES from colliding! | 00:48
Piastri held onto second on the opening lap while Norris found himself out of position and back in fifth having narrowly failed to overtake the Australian.
That opened the door to an alternative strategy for the Briton — a one-stop on hard tyres which was something of a Hail Mary, but one which Norris was willing to take.
Piastri, meanwhile, was locked into a two-stop strategy, ostensibly to fight with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for the win despite the threat of Norris holding front position on a narrow track.
Ultimately, without team orders, Piastri was put in a position where he would have to overtake Norris — and he ran out of time do so, coming second by less than one second having failed to make a move stick on the penultimate lap.
Piastri remained calm and positive after the race. But former driver and Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle said that he had reason to be angry with how the race shook out.
“Oscar will be seething with that,” he said.
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McLaren call costs Piastri Hungary win | 02:38
“They were busy strategising to beat Leclerc. Norris didn’t have that problem as he was out of the picture and came in 13 laps later and changed strategy.
“The great irony is by not being in that fight with the Ferrari at the front they had more freedom and took it.
“But he still had to deliver that pace for that amount of time on those tyres.
“Oscar will be asking ‘why didn’t we do that? Why have we two-stopped and been beaten by our teammate who one-stopped?’
The Race’s Valentin Khorounzhiy, however, suggested the reality of the strategy call was far more brutal on Piastri, who “obviously got screwed” by the team.
Khorounzhiy said that Piastri was “smart enough not to make a big stink out” of the result, but that it was clear he was dudded since Norris’ strategy had launched him from a distant fifth.
Deflated Lewis says ‘a lot’ is going on | 00:51
“The strategy he (Norris) ended up saddled with – which, it bears saying, I am 100 per cent sure was through race circumstance – was demonstrably better than Piastri’s, whose race fell victim to that early stop targeting a Leclerc undercut,” he wrote.
“Norris might have been marginally the faster driver here but he won because he qualified behind. And it’s all well and good to say McLaren turned a 2-3 (even 2-4) into a 1-2 here, but at a certain part of the season that doesn’t matter to your drivers and you have to know that.”
He also questioned some communication on the McLaren pit wall, adding: “It was very strange that race engineer Tom Stallard was asking Piastri whether he wanted to prioritise beating Leclerc or beating Norris; like, what do you think?”
His colleague at The Race Scott Mitchell-Malm floated that given Piastri was merely a victim of his own success in the race’s early stages relative to Norris, that the lack of team orders is a consideration worth discussion.
“I feel for Piastri … Piastri deserved this win, and in a straight fight would have won it,” he wrote.
“It’ll be interesting in the post-race analysis if there was an alternative route to victory that didn’t involve just removing Norris from the picture.
“So the question I suppose is should McLaren have got involved like last year and forced a position swap?”
‘**** turned in on me!’ Russell fumes | 01:43
The difficulty for Piastri is that when locked in a battle at the front of the race, taking a one-stop strategy would’ve made little sense as opposed to trying to undercut Leclerc for the race lead and pulling away. Once the first stop was made early, it left Piastri with little strategic flexibility.
It’s a point that Sky Sports’ strategy analyst and former strategy engineer for Aston Martin, Bernie Collins, made post-race.
Nonetheless, she said that even how McLaren executed Piastri’s two-stop strategy was worthy of extra investigation in team meetings.
“I don’t think there is a lot more he could’ve done,” she said of Piastri.
“I think there’ll be questions to be asked, should they have done the last stop (of Piastri’s two stops) a little later? Could that have given them more of a tyre delta to Norris? They’ll look at what the traffic looked like — I think his (Piastri’s) point is valid on the traffic potentially on the two-stop hurting you a little bit.
“Why didn’t you just T-Bone him?” | 01:18
“There will be stuff they review. The first is the one stop versus the two-stop (decision), and the second thing is if the second stop could’ve been a bit later.”
Collins added that Piastri did not appear to be angry over how the race unfolded, despite being outgunned by the other half of McLaren’s pit wall.
“It was really interesting listening to his team radio at the end of the race. He really was quite positive so I don’t know if that’s outwardly to encourage the team. He thanked them for the strategy… he was really positive,” she said.