Piastri makes it a Magnificent Seven
Norris Narrows Verstappen’s Title Lead
This season started out looking like a Verstappen steamroller, but now it’s shaping up to be a classic as Oscar Piastri scored his debut win to become the seventh race winner this year.
Differing strategies, intra-team tension, and a very grumpy Dutchman made this an intriguing race, though it lacked the on-track action of some others we’ve enjoyed this year.
Piastri Takes it Off the Line
Norris needs to work on his starts. Everything else, he excels at, but this is becoming a problem. His initial getaway was good, for once, but Piastri got the better line into the first corner and was able to snatch the lead. Verstappen did get past Norris but due to doing so off-track he was made to give the place back. This was the first but not last occasion we heard the Dutch driver being rather cantankerous on the radio.
Piastri drove very well indeed, building a gap, and only looked in trouble once. And that was self-inflicted by the team. He was not flawless, he did dip a wheel into gravel and cost himself a few seconds, but otherwise the only threat he suffered was the woe that is McLaren strategy.
The team has an awesome driver lineup, as both Norris and Piastri are highly talented, young enough to be there for years, and capable of delivering a 1–2 finish. It’s worth noting that but for Alpine’s lack of a firm grip then Piastri would have been driving for the team that finished 18th and 20th in Hungary, instead of the team that was 1st and 2nd.
McLaren Give Themselves a Headache
McLaren have great drivers, the best car on the grid, and a penchant for strategically dubious decisions. In the UK, Piastri was robbed of probable victory by keeping him out on dry tyres as the rain beat down. In Hungary, the team needlessly pitted Norris first, giving him the undercut and swapping the order.
Norris did, eventually, give the lead back but it was not a smart decision. The Briton is right that he’s (just about) in a title fight with Verstappen, and while morally it was the right thing to give up the place, surrendering points when your rival has a huge lead is never easy.
Piastri’s extremely calm, which is handy, because it must have been a very tense waiting lap, after lap, after lap, for the victory to come knowing the team’s strategic decision needlessly lost you the lead you’d enjoyed pretty much all race long.
Both men are young and could be with McLaren for a long time so it’s important they get along. While the long delay may make things a little awkward, the fact is Norris did give up the win for Piastri and that should help solidify things.
Piastri knows the team is not placing him as a second driver to Norris, and Norris has benefited from Piastri’s help in the past and likely will do again this year. Of course, if Norris loses out on the title by 6 points at the end of the year, we’ll all look back to this moment.
Despite this daftness, McLaren took a big chunk of points out of Red Bull. At the time of writing, Red Bull are on 389, McLaren 338. While a 51-point gap is sizeable, this is 27 points narrower than before Hungary and there are 11 races left. If McLaren averages just 5 points better than Red Bull per race, they’ll take this title.
Ferrari are not far off, on 322 points. The problem is that since the victory at Monaco the team has really gone off the boil and are behind not just McLaren but Mercedes as well. Unless they get substantial upgrades very soon, they’re out of the title race.
Verstappen Gets Grumpy
The Red Bull is definitely not the fastest car, and Verstappen was struggling in Budapest. The car was not to his liking, he had to surrender a place to Norris, and a lock-up plus collision with Hamilton put him behind Leclerc as well, in 5th. This narrowed, by 8 points, his lead over Norris in the title race. His advantage, however, remains a hefty 76 points.
Even if Verstappen took the next three races off and Norris won them all, the Dutchman would lead the Briton by 1 point.
All through the race, Verstappen was complaining. Even his race engineer started to get annoyed with his moaning (often about the car and struggling to handle it, clearly the setup was less than optimal). However, that distraction is more than just a social media story for memes. Keeping a level head matters. Verstappen’s lock up, collision, and finishing two places lower than he might have can be, perhaps, attributed to getting hot under the collar.
Between the radio pleading of McLaren to get Norris to back off and Verstappen’s irritable messages, there will have been some very interesting debriefs.
200th Podium for Hamilton
Bit of a sideshow to the radio messages and tense end, but Hamilton took the time to rack up another faintly ridiculous record: his 200th podium. A new driver could have eight seasons in the sport, score a podium in every race, and still not have that many. Come on, Hamilton. Success is nice but you’re having so much it just looks greedy.
Perez Probably Replaced
Perez had a pretty good race after his qualifying disaster, finishing 7th, having started 16th. However, that’s an absolute highlight given recent weak performances. There’s still a likelihood he’s going to be replaced at the mid-season break. After Miami, there have been seven races, of which he has had two DNFs, three pointless results, and a highest place of 7th (Hungary and Austria). He’s hemorrhaging points to McLaren, and this could end up costing the team the title.
It’s worth noting this has happened to every driver with Verstappen, save Ricciardo. All of them are talented (Gasly, Albon, Perez). But there’s no 2023-style car advantage that allows the luxury of a clearly second driver not pulling his weight. It’s sad to see. Perez has had some amazing performances, Sakhir 2020 standing out, but right now he’s dead weight.
This might not make a huge difference. The Red Bull might only be the third fastest car right now, at best it’s second, and Mercedes/Ferrari are not short on driver talent.
Richard
