McLaren and Lando Norris: The key questions after Hungarian Grand Prix drama | F1 News

After McLaren’s best weekend in Formula 1 for a long time was overshadowed by a team-orders controversy, Sky Sports F1 answers the key questions that have arisen from the incident.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri secured McLaren’s first front-row lockout since 2012 in qualifying, before a reversal of that result sealed the Woking squad’s first race one-two finish since 2021, but only after a very generous helping of drama.

Piastri got the better start and emerged from the first corner in front of his team-mate, theoretically earning priority treatment for the remainder of the afternoon in Budapest.

However, McLaren chose to give Norris the advantage of pitting first at the second and final round of stops, which resulted in the Briton starting the final stint in the lead.

McLaren’s pit wall, led by team principal Andrea Stella, knew Norris was going to emerge in the lead but were confident their lead driver – according to the championship standings – would allow Piastri back through for the Australian’s first grand prix victory.

What was occurring on the track at this point, as Norris gradually opened a gap, was not hugely exciting, but the radio messages going back and forth between team and driver were quite simply remarkable.

Norris was repeatedly asked to let Piastri through and initially ignored and protested the order, prompting his race engineer Will Joseph to offer up an incredible series of guilt-tripping messages, urging the 24-year-old to consider the greater good of the team.

The tension continued to build until Norris, having built a five-second lead, eventually relented with three laps to go as he slowed on the main straight to allow Piastri into the lead.

Piastri’s maiden full race victory was secured, but the Australian sounded notably subdued for a driver who had just achieved his “childhood dream”, while instead of enjoying jubilant celebrations and what would have been deserved praise, McLaren faced a post-race grilling about their decisions and actions.

Does McLaren’s explanation make sense?

Firstly, it must be made crystal clear that Stella deserves an enormous amount of credit for the job he has done since taking charge at McLaren ahead of the 2023 season.

A remarkable turnaround has seen them go from the back of the grid at the start of last year, to establishing themselves as the team to beat for the second half of this campaign.

However, with success comes greater scrutiny, which Stella and his team have begun to face over the last couple of months after Norris confirmed their ascent at May’s Miami Grand Prix with his maiden F1 victory.

Errors since then have resulted in chances for more wins, particularly for Norris, slipping away, leading to questions over whether both driver and team are championship ready.

Part of Stella’s explanation after the race would suggest not. He said a big consideration was wanting to avoid putting the McLaren pit crew under pressure.

“I just did not want to have a situation at the pit stop, where there’s a problem that puts us behind a Mercedes or a Ferrari,” he said.

This is not much of an endorsement of the McLaren pit crew, who will undoubtedly face many high-pressured situations in future if the team remains in contention for race victories.

This followed an incident in the race before at Silverstone where McLaren’s decision not to double stack their cars in the wet destroyed Piastri’s chances of victory.

Stella and McLaren’s approach is in great contrast to rivals Red Bull, who have, in recent times, chosen to pit Max Verstappen from the lead late in races so that he could put on fresh tyres to set the fastest lap of the race and gain an extra point.

There has been little evidence over the past two seasons to suggest McLaren’s pit crew are not elite, so the pit wall must back them to deliver in the same way they do with the drivers.

Was Norris really ‘always’ going to let Piastri through?

The headline from Norris’ post-race interviews was that he was “always” going to let his team-mate through, but there was a brief and telling note on the end of his explanation.

He said: “I know that I always was going to give it back, unless they changed their mind on what they were saying and they didn’t, so all good.”

While it is fair to take Norris’ word that he was never going to outright disobey a team order to give the position back to Piastri, he tried extremely hard to persuade the team to change that order.

Both Norris and Stella said after the race there was never any doubt the switch would be made, but the nature of the messages being directed at Norris told a completely different story.

Joseph, sounding more stressed and emotional with every message he sent, was almost begging Norris to give the position back by the time it eventually happened.

Surely, if the team had been as confident as they say they were, there would have been no need to have such a public back and forth, filled with quite personal messages, for the world to witness.

After letting Piastri through, Norris said over radio that the team did not need to “say anything”, perhaps a suggestion he did not enjoy the tone of the previous communication he had received.

Ultimately, only Norris and the rest of the McLaren team know exactly what was going through their heads at the time. It also surely played on his mind that he would have been denying his team-mate a maiden grand prix win.

Is Norris ‘too nice’ to be a champion?

This conclusion played out on a race weekend that Norris had begun having to answer questions as to whether he is “too nice” to be a world champion.

That debate was rumbling on from his June collision with Verstappen in Austria, for which he was initially critical of the Dutchman but then notably backed down the following weekend.

If Norris wanted to shut down the nice-guy conversation, this was the ultimate opportunity to do it once and for all.

“I don’t care what people say from that side,” Norris said on Thursday. “I’m a nice guy and I try to be and I try to be respectful in every way that I can. But that has absolutely zero relevance for what happens on track.

“When I put my helmet on, I don’t care what people say in a bad way. I’ll do whatever I need to do to win and it’s quite simple from that side.”

Well, apart from ignoring an order from his team, apparently.

From a human perspective, Norris’ approach is hugely refreshing and is part of what makes him an amazing ambassador for the sport. He is a likeable young man whose authenticity is helping to expand F1’s audience, while his activism around mental health is also wonderful to see.

But inevitable comparisons will be made to some of the sport’s great champions of past and present, who have repeatedly shown a ruthless edge.

Verstappen would not even let Sergio Perez through for sixth place at the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix to help his team-mate’s quest for second in the drivers’ standings, while Sebastian Vettel famously defied team orders when beating team-mate Mark Webber to victory at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix.

There is absolutely no need for Norris to change who he is outside of the car, but when the helmet goes on, there is an argument that a more ruthless streak could benefit him in future.

Why did Piastri get away with a crucial error?

After the race, Norris insisted the result had been decided when Piastri got past him at the first corner, rather than by any of the events that followed later in the 70-lap race.

Piastri was dominant in the first phase of the race as he opened a big enough gap for McLaren to be able to pit Norris first and still have him retain the lead, despite the significant time gained by stopping first.

He was further extending that advantage on the second stint, when an error on lap 33 suddenly saw the gap between the McLarens reduced from over five seconds to below two.

Had it not been for this error, McLaren most likely could have executed the safety-first option of pitting Norris first, and also been able to keep Piastri ahead again.

It is unclear whether Norris was aware of the mistake his team-mate made, but a more ruthless individual may have used the incident as justification not to give the place back.

Piastri also dipped a wheel into the gravel as he attempted to keep up with Norris after coming out of the pits, another error that seemed to be forgotten amid Norris’ post-race insistence his team-mate deserved the win.

The Australian’s performance provided evidence of the huge progress he has made in terms of tyre-management over his first season and a half in F1, but he ultimately made two mistakes, and then could not keep up with Norris on the final stint.

“I think ultimately, I just wasn’t quite as quick as I needed to be in the last stint,” Piastri said. “So I think that’s something that I want to improve.

“I’m very, very happy with the result, of course, but in terms of leaving the weekend, with the question of am I fully satisfied with my performance today? No, I’m not. And there’s still things I want to improve.”

Is the Norris-Piastri pairing sustainable?

Pushed on what is discussed in the Sunday morning McLaren pre-race meetings that were desperately referenced on the radio as Norris was encouraged to give the place back, Stella revealed a guiding principle.

“The interest of the team comes first. If you mess up on this matter, you cannot be part of the McLaren Formula 1 team,” he said.

A strong statement, which leaves one to wonder what the repercussions would have been had Norris kept the victory for himself.

In theory, most F1 teams would say they operate with a similar principle, but such an approach is easier to follow when there is a clear hierarchy among the drivers.

Do the best drivers in the sport want to be in a situation where them winning the Drivers’ Championship is not the team’s priority?

Red Bull have built around Verstappen’s talent in recent years, while they did similarly in the past with Vettel, whose team-mate was Webber, Piastri’s manager. More on that in a moment.

Mercedes endured the discomfort of Lewis Hamilton’s battles with Nico Rosberg before installing the more agreeable – and beatable – Valtteri Bottas as the Brit’s team-mate.

Praising the influence of Webber after his win, Piastri said: “His hindsight of his career is my foresight. And he can keep me out of a few traps, a few holes that maybe he experienced in his career.”

Piastri clearly has no intention of being number two to anyone, while Norris is holding onto slim hopes of chasing down Verstappen this season and competing for a maiden crown next year.

If McLaren are here to stay at the front of the grid, managing a highly-talented driver pairing who both have title aspirations is going to be extremely tricky for Stella.

The action continues this weekend with the final race before F1’s summer break, the Belgian Grand Prix. You can watch every session from Spa-Francorchamps live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – No contract, cancel anytime