McLaren pleaded with Lando Norris for 20 laps to let his team mate Oscar Piastri into the lead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
His race engineer Will Joseph made appeal after appeal to Norris, who appeared reluctant to give up his shot at victory and lose seven precious points in his pursuit of championship leader Max Verstappen.At first he told Norris the team wanted to “re-establish the order at your convenience.” However they had also told Piastri he needed to get within range of Norris before they swapped the order.
The team were concerned how hard Norris was pushing and in a series of messages urged him to moderate his pace. These went unanswered for so long Joseph decided to check his driver could actually hear him.
“Lando, radio check please,” he said. “Yes, loud and clear,” Norris replied. “Okay, save the tyres in turn four and 11 then please,” answered Joseph.
But still Norris refused to back off, maintaining his gap over Piastri at three-and-a-half seconds. “We need you to save more tyres please and we do want to let Oscar through,” Joseph reminded him. “We should have boxed him first, then, surely?” replied Norris. Told that “doesn’t matter,” Norris answered: “I mean, it does. For me, maybe.”
Joseph continued to bombard Norris over the following laps. “Lando we still think you’re using the tyres too much turn four, turn 11, and the rears at exit turn six, turn nine,” he said. “Oscar’s 3.5. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
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He tried telling Norris their tyre expert Hiroshi Imai was “stressed about the tyre use”. He drilled home the message about saving the tyres at “turn four, turn 11” over and over. “It’s going to get boring,” Joseph added.
McLaren were clearly seriously concerned Norris was not going to let Piastri by. “Just remember every single Sunday morning meeting we have,” Joseph said. “Tell him to catch up then,” Norris answered.
“Lando there are five laps to go,” Joseph urged as they neared the chequered flag. “The way to win a championship is not by yourself. It’s with the team. You’re going to need Oscar and you’re going to need the team.”
But after the race Norris said he never intended to deny Piastri victory. He only intended to wait until the last moment, and said he didn’t need to give the team any indication what he had planned.
“I know what I’m going to do and what I’m not going to do,” he said afterwards. “Of course I’m going to question it and challenge it, and that’s what I did.
“I was going to wait until the last lap, the last corner. But then they said if there was a Safety Car all of a sudden, and I couldn’t let Oscar go through, then it would have made me look like a bit of an idiot. Then I was like, ‘yeah, it’s a fair point’, and I let him go with two [laps] to go or something.”
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Norris denied he had been persuaded to give up the place to Piastri, and insisted he always planned to swap. “You can make what you will of what you hear and what you think you know and that kind of stuff but 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.”
However Norris admitted he thought about how valuable the seven points he lost could prove if he continues to take points off Verstappen over the rest of the season.
“Things are always going to go through your mind because you’ve got to be selfish in this sport at times. You’ve got to think of yourself. That’s priority number one, think of yourself.
“I’m also a team player, so my mind was going pretty crazy at the time. I know what we’ve done in the past between Oscar and myself. He’s helped me plenty of times.
“I think this is a different situation. This is not someone helping one another. I was put into a position, and we were undoing that position change. But I get it, and I know a lot of people are going to say the gap between me and Max is pretty big – 60, 70, 80 points or something. [But] if Red Bull and Max make the mistakes like they did today and continue to do that, and as a team we continue to improve and have weekends like we’ve had this weekend, we can turn it around.
“It’s still optimistic. It’s still a big goal to say, yeah, we can close 70 points and as a driver, I can close 70 points in half a season. And then when you’re thinking of the seven or six points that I give away, then it crosses your mind, for sure. So it was not easy, but I also understood the situation I was in and I was quite confident always by the last lap I would have done it.”
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2024 Hungarian Grand Prix
- Verstappen names Hungarian GP the most stressful moment of his title-winning year
- McLaren team orders “a new situation we’re inexperienced at handling” – Piastri
- Verstappen dismisses critics of “vocal” radio messages and late-night simracing
- Norris’ former McLaren team mates say he was right to give up win
- Mercedes surprised Hamilton’s car was “completely unscathed” in Verstappen clash
Applebook
21st July 2024, 22:45
I had little doubt that he would let Oscar through. He just wanted to show off and prove a point first. For better and for worse, he is not Max or Alonso.
stefano (@alfa145)
22nd July 2024, 0:15
I still don’t understand what would be the point in waiting the last lap, last corner. It would mean zero chance to attack again for the win. Had he given the position back with 20 laps to go, he would be probably be going home with the win. Missed chance by him to look a bit further ahead than to try and stretch the patience of his team for who knows what purpose
James (@knewman)
22nd July 2024, 0:40
I’d guess Norris wanted to wait until the final corner for the “number of grand prix laps lead” statistic, which counts in the annals of F1 history. Also to prove that he was faster than Piastri, make it as obvious as possible that it was a team order. And there already was zero chance to attack for the win as team orders were issued.
BasCB (@bascb)
22nd July 2024, 13:10
Nah, it’s more about showing he’d be granting Piastri and the team a favour. A bit of a “see, I could easily have kept it” thing.
Martin Hughes
22nd July 2024, 9:31
McLaren wouldn’t have allowed them to fight, not at that stage of the race with a 1-2.
stefano (@alfa145)
23rd July 2024, 14:03
that’s hardly relevant. Vettel overtook Webber in Malaysia anyway. And you look less of a traitor if you overtake back, rather than stab everyone by not giving the position back. Racing your way to the win, even when instructed otherwise, is seen as less of a crime, in a way.
Peter Mahoney
22nd July 2024, 0:51
well, I think in the future before he ( Norris ) starts a race he should ask his “team” which position they want him to finish the race.
Retired (@jeff1s)
22nd July 2024, 6:41
That one’s a hell of a team radio.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
22nd July 2024, 6:47
How easy has it become to drive a F1 car if drivers can elaborate and hold lengthy arguments with their team over the radio while setting their fastest laps?
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
22nd July 2024, 10:06
You once vomited whilst driving an F1 car. I don’t know if you changed the diff settings, but it’s still multitasking.
Dick Dawson
22nd July 2024, 7:03
All the real greats have done the same but unlike Lando they took the win. Nuff said.
Nathaniel
22nd July 2024, 11:20
People really are funny. There is no “let him by early then fight past him again” This was team orders. Oscar was gifted the win by the team. Once passed Lando would have been told to hold station and not allowed to fight. That reality.
Applebook
22nd July 2024, 19:57
Come on, man. I’m a Lando fan, but Oscar earned this win at the first corner. Had Lando been right on Oscar’s tail the entire first stint, he could have switched to a different strategy to fight for the win, but he was no quicker than Oscar in the first half of the race when it mattered. He should have asked to go long for the final stop and then fight Oscar with much fresher tires instead of pitting.
Yaboi
23rd July 2024, 12:10
We don’t know that, and if Lando had them attacked it’d be fair enough.
As it was whoever won, the win would have been tainted. Sadly it was Oscar’s first win too, the team really messed up by putting Lando first, and Lando messed up by not letting him through sooner and therefore throwing away a potential win for the 3rd race in a row
Tarn Burton (@yitzchak)
22nd July 2024, 14:46
As soon as they told Norris to box I knew exactly what would happen after Piastri pitted. The fact that the McLaren team didn’t anticipate Norris’ behavior speaks volumes. If I was them I would never pit Norris first again if it meant that Norris would get track position over Piastri, even if that meant they lost points overall. The radio traffic needed to cajole Norris into behaving like a sportsman is just too embarrassing.
Francis Scriven
22nd July 2024, 15:18
I think Lando has a lot to learn about a team player, instead of trying to impress Max, by being as selfish as he is.
CanOBeans
23rd July 2024, 2:43
This is not the first time the lead car being Oscar hasn’t been given the preference to take the first pit stop. They’ve said each time it was to keep someone else behind Lando…
The issue isn’t the team order, the issue at McLaren is pitting the wrong driver first regardless of their track position.
This sounds like Mark was hounding staff at McLaren to get his driver in the correct position because they habitually pit Lando first every single time.
Jack
22nd July 2024, 17:57
Lando was only thinking about himself and not the team.
McLaren got themselves into the situation but Oscar deserved the swapping and Lando should have been smart enough to have done it straight away and then argued his point that he was faster etc or waited for Oscar to make an error.
The fact the team had to keep telling Lando about the swap means they didn’t have faith he was going to follow the order, it should have taken one message and for him to confirm he would.
Veyron_fan
22nd July 2024, 21:24
Of course he’s thinking about himself, that’s what these guys do, it’s what they HAVE to do to get where they are, within reason. But “not thinking about the team”? What difference would it have made to “the team” had he not given it back? They’d still get the 1 2 and there only driver with a real shot at the wdc would be 7 points closer. For perspective, I’m a massive Lando fan and despite the fact I completely blame Mclaren for creating the situation in the first place unnecessarily, I was pro him giving the place back. But I also get the point he was trying to make, that they 1) took away his chance to take the win thru strategy by either choosing to undercut when stuck up behind the slower car or by instead going longer with his better pace to build a tyre delta for an attack at the end. And 2) that he believes he’s in with a shot at the wdc and needs to be supported for it by the team like redbull are Max, where as McLaren seem to think he’s not in with a chance at it given they were so happy to give away 7 free points towards it when it didn’t change the teams points outcome at all.
We can only hope that this has now been the kick in the pants Mclaren needed to have a serious top level sit down with the drivers, Lando in particular, and come to a clear decision on what they are doing for the rest of the season. Are they happy to forget the wdc in favour of letting the drivers race and take points off each other? or do they make the call that other teams have had to make year after year and agree that they want to give the wdc shot 100% chance of happening and support Lando whenever the opportunity arises to do so when it doesn’t cause any detriment to the teams wcc fight.
KB
22nd July 2024, 18:19
Do McLaren honestly want to compete in this years DC? Red Bull have a significant gap and there is no guarantee the team will have the advantage at every race. If they honestly want to compete this year now is the time to get behind one driver. Lando lost the lead but had he only had to fend off Max it would have been a lot easier. Racing the team as a democracy might win the constructors- but without periods of dominance it won’t secure the drivers.
Jack R
23rd July 2024, 1:41
Don’t ask a racer to not race.