Hungarian GP 2024
The McLaren Saga
Fourteen years on from the last McLaren One-Two race win, McLaren emphasise their long awaited recovery to winning ways with an Oscar Piastri lead double podium finish at the HungaroRing. Much like the Hamilton — Button 2010 Canadian GP double podium for McLaren, this win was full of internal McLaren controversy.
The 2024 Hungarian GP weekend started with Norris emphatically beating his rival and championship leader Max Verstappen to poll and having his team-mate between himself and the triple world-champion. With half the job done, Norris had his sights set on winning the race without the palava of fighting Verstappen for the win. He was the chased, rather than the chaser for a change.
The first step towards a race win is a great start. Norris starting on the side with the racing line had a poor start as the red lights went out. Bugged down with poor grip, he found himself heading into the first corner with Verstappen along side him to the left and his team-mate along side him to the right. Three abreast turning into the first corner. Squeezed from both sides, Norris was compromised entering the corner. Piastri pounced and took the lead. Verstappen who was forced of track, powers himself back on track to second position. And compromised Norris was relegated to fourth as Hamilton took the opening that arose due to Verstappen to take a short lived third place. This scenario set up the themes of what became an incredible race.
The Hungaroring being a difficult track to overtake, afforded Piastri the comfort to manage the race as he saw fit. He put a 3 second gap between himself and the chasing Norris. And it seemed all too clear that a Piastri lead McLaren win was on the cards. Piastri had an awkward overtake to lap a difficult Ocon and consequentially the gap to Norris dropped to just under two seconds. Norris being outside the DRS of Piastri suggested that both McLaren would fly in formation to the finish line.
That was until the McLaren pit wall pitted Norris first and two laps later pitted Piastri. In the meantime, the pit wall instructed Piastri to push hards with fastest laps possible. This of course resulted in Piastri running of track in the process. He pitted and came out of the pits to find Norris breezing by as he come onto the track. An undercut had been inadvertently effected, with Piastri now losing the lead of the race to Norris. Incidentally, the word “UnderCut” was coined by ex-McLaren driver David Coultard
I watched this moment and thought the Australian has just been robbed of a race win. No doubt, that would have been the first thought that crossed the young Australian’s mind. Interestingly, he did not protest, he was quiet and carried on racing. Meanwhile Norris in clean air and sensing a gifted chance to win the race, laid out some very sublime driving to put a six second gap between himself and the flabbergasted Piastri.
At this juncture, McLaren realized they had made a serious strategic error and set about trying to correct it. They had unintentionally undercut their race leading driver and given an advantage to the lagging driver.
While ahead, Norris demonstrated that he would have won the race easily if he had a better start of the race. He had superior pace clearly. He navigated the backmarkers more efficiently. But having a good start is an important component to winning a race. Unfortunately, he did not execute a decent start and he paid dearly by ending up behind Piastri. Piastri on the other hand executed a flawless race until it was scuppered by the McLaren strategist.
The situation nonetheless placed us fans in a dilemma, as we considered the positions of each driver under the circumstances. Both drivers found themselves in a situation that was not of their making. It was an unfair situation that deprives one and rewards the other inadvertently. In Norris’ mind, l suspect he was thinking, l got the poll position, l should win this race. For Norris’ fans, it was a tough luck mate; moment for Piastri.
But this is a competition. We all strive for each win to be on merit of on-track performance. Piastri had done the work to put himself in the lead and may have won the race without the error, all things being equal of course. Without the strategic foul-up, with Piastri stopping first, Norris may well have put out some fast laps before pitting to put himself in a position to take the lead after his pitstop. This is highly speculative at best, considering the nature of the track.
The key test of the situation was one of honour in sportsmanship. How honour and self preservation collide and play out in what transpired in many minutes of open pleading to right the wrong that was not the driver’s fault. This win would have brought Norris much closer to the points of the driver championship leader Verstappen. He would have recovered some of the points lost from their clash in Austria that resulted in DNF for him. More importantly, this race could easily be an important difference at the end of the season. Much like how the Singapore fire hose incident was the difference for Masa losing the 2008 driver’s championship to Hamilton. Every little bit counts in F1.
This was the reality that confronted Sebastian Vettel in the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix. Incidentally, another Australian and manager of Piastri was in that tricky position. Vettel unlike Norris, took the win and ignored teams orders to give the place back. He went on to becoming a four times F1 Drivers world champion. This raises the question; is Norris hungry enough to win F1 world championships. Does he have the toughness and determination to win by whatever means possible. You see this kind of steeliness in Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen and Alonso. I see it in Sainz and definitely in Russell. Some may think Norris is yet to demonstrate the toughness necessary to defeat Verstappen in a championship fight. In the wheel-to-wheel battles between these two, Verstappen has demonstrated he is willing to fight until the wheels come off. And he has come out on top in all of their on track battles.
That aside, F1 has always had honour among drivers. Stirling Moss; the ultimate gentleman, comes to mind. Hamilton returning track position to Bottas is a recent example. Most drivers return track position gained by unfairly attaining that position by running off track; mostly, before being requested to do so as a demonstration of honour. Some drivers would try to hang on to the unfairly gained position until asked to return it. As we saw with Verstappen at the Hungarian GP. Pushing the envelope is not a bad thing per se. This is just a quest to gain an advantage wherever possible which is the hallmark of the dog-eat-dog nature of modern F1. Honour did not fair well for Hamilton at Abu Dhabi in 2021. Nor did it favour Norris at Austria as Verstappen went on to extend his lead.
Hard as it was for Norris to yield what was a race win in hand to Piastri, it was a demonstration of being a team-player. But he did so as he clearly battled with the dilemma of honour vs self-preservation. Honour won out, with it the respect of the team and the entire F1 world. Doing the right thing can be very hard sometimes. It takes a good and decent man to have the courage to do what is hard but the right thing to do.
Piastri on the other hand handled the situation with a surprising calmness. If l had to pick someone to diffuse a bomb, Piastri would be a great candidate. Some drivers in Piastri’s position would have instantly been on the radio accusing the team of cheating him out of a win. Which would have doubled the difficulty of the situation for the McLaren pitwall. He gave the team the opportunity to resolve the situation or explain why he had missed out. Luckily, he was not driving a Redbull, Webber may have thought.
More so, McLaren proved at this race to be a very honourable team willing to do what was necessary to right an error of their own doing. While both McLaren drivers have the speed to win races, it is becoming ever more clearer to Norris that he cannot afford to do a bad job on race day. As he would be punished by his team mate who is as quick as him at this stage of their careers. Piastri is improving at a very fast rate. I can see the order reversed between these two, with Norris chasing Piastri in the future; as we saw at this race.
That said, can McLaren win the constructor’s championship? At the current trajectory, this is looking most likely. One Redbull to two McLaren cars, translates to a upper hand for McLaren. Until Redbull can give Perez a car he is comfortable in, McLaren has the advantage. If Hungary is anything to go by, then we could say the driver’s championship may soon be in jeopardy for Verstappen, if both McLaren finish ahead of him in a majority of future races.
At halfway through the season, it seems both championships are still very much on the table and within reach of McLaren.
Big congratulations to Sir Lewis Hamilton for his 200th career podium. The most that any driver has ever achieved. And on one of his favourite tracks.
