2024 Hungarian Grand Prix | 5 talking points

Norris plays the team game – eventually

It’s that delicious old motor sport tension: is it a team game or one that’s centred around the individual who is ultimately out for themselves? That conflict reared its head yet again as Lando Norris spent the best part of 20 laps apparently considering what to do: obey the team order he hated and give the lead back to Oscar Piastri – or follow his own instinct to win for himself?

There was so much on the line here, and McLaren tied itself in knots in the process. Then again, for the first time since 2012, the team was set to score a grand prix victory on pure merit, with the fastest car out there and without the help of safety cars or bad luck for others handing it the opportunity. This was a massive breakthrough as the team stood on the cusp of a significant 1-2 that meant a lot more than the last flukey one at Monza a few years back. It’s important context to the knot-tying bit of the story.

For Norris, he got the ball rolling by putting himself on the backfoot at the start when he failed to stop Piastri scorching down the inside line towards Turn 1. Almost immediately the team went into race management mode to fend off first Max Verstappen and later Lewis Hamilton. Which driver took the win wasn’t the priority, as long as one of them did so. But was Hamilton really a threat? Perhaps not – but after the strategy slips at the British GP, it’s easy to understand why the team felt covering all the bases was the only option.

That’s why, for the final round of pitstops Norris got the call first, as a means of withstanding any Hamilton threat. Given the power of the undercut at the Hungaroring, when Piastri stopped a couple of laps later, he now found himself in arrears through no fault of his own. The team felt compelled to switch the order because of its own choices and actions taken in those vital moments.

The understandable temptation to defy the order

Now in front, Norris was building a gap, but only because he’d been gifted the position to do so. Then again, now he had the advantage, what was Piastri going to do about it? He wasn’t exactly right on the leader’s gearbox, was he? No wonder that old racing driver instinct kicked in. Why should Norris give this up? Also, what would the greats of the past have done in this situation? ‘Multi-21’ Seb Vettel and all that.

But had Norris followed his gut and ignored the order, the effects within his team would have been catastrophic. His engineer, Will Joseph, told him on the radio, “The way to win a championship is with the team. You’re going to need Oscar and you’re going to need the team.” It’s easy to say Norris should have ignored the call and taken the win. But living with that call within a team that no longer trusted him, and with a team-mate who would never forget, it would have risked everything he’s worked so hard to build up since his first season in 2019. He made the only sensible call open to him. Whether the team should have put him in that position in the first place – that’s another question…

The worry is how much damage this episode has done, even with the outcome falling as McLaren ordered. It might well prove pivotal in the Norris-McLaren relationship anyway. Team boss Andrea Stella has said he was confident Norris would always follow the order, and Norris himself says he always planned to – even if he was clearly struggling with the call. But racing driver-team relationships are sensitive, especially in moments of such pressure. We’ll soon find out whether there are any signs of lasting damage from this awkward episode.

Verstappen’s cracked relationship with Red Bull

The vitriol, the public criticism, the lack of respect for those calling the shots from the pit wall – if McLaren thinks it has a problem with Norris, it’s nothing compared to the state of play at Red Bull. Yes, the team is well used to Verstappen’s hair-trigger personality by now, but somehow the petulance and rage this time seemed to cross a line. In the face of what’s been coming for a few weeks, Verstappen dealt with the new reality of McLaren’s impressive form with an appalling lack of grace. Then again, he won’t care what we or anyone else should think of him. We should all just “f*** off,” apparently.

Stay classy, champ.

Collision was Verstappen’s fault

The dive on Lewis Hamilton into Turn 1 was always marginal and the result all too predictable. As usual, Verstappen expected his opposition to cede, because he’d pressed full send. He was barely under control of his RB20 in those moments. The entitlement in how he then blamed Hamilton for the collision that followed would be considered astounding, except we’ve seen it all before.

As Hamilton pointed out on the radio, he didn’t turn into the Red Bull. Yes, he was moving right, but only because he was heading into a right-hand corner. Where else was he supposed to go? Left, to get out of the way? Why should he do that? No, this one was on Verstappen, pure and simple. And two weeks after ending his win drought at Silverstone, Hamilton fully earned the podium at another old happy hunting ground. He was just lucky the Verstappen assault didn’t take him out of the game.

Piastri deserves his breakthrough

Final word, then, to the winner. It’s been coming for a while and perhaps should have happened at Silverstone. Oscar Piastri was a deserving winner in Hungary, even though his breakthrough will probably always be clouded by the team orders row.

His start was a peach, and how he kept it clean without clattering into Norris was a sign of high skill in combat. From there, as we’ve said, Piastri’s destiny was largely in his team’s hands and the controversy was absolutely not of his making. But it was still a fine drive worthy of a first F1 win.

There were scruffy moments – he nearly lost it at the fast Turn 11, so it wasn’t a perfect drive. And he was lucky the points gap between Verstappen and Norris is of a size that means McLaren didn’t feel compelled to favour the Englishman when it had a big decision to make. But on the balance of the whole performance, Piastri certainly delivered as he joined the likes of Damon Hill and Jenson Button as a Hungaroring first-time grand prix winner. The fifth Australian to win in F1 after Sir Jack Brabham, Alan Jones, Mark Webber, and Daniel Ricciardo, the 23-year-old is also the first GP winner born in the 21^st century.

Now there’s a thought to make one feel old.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.