Oscar Piastri was allowed through by team mate Lando Norris under team orders to claim his first career grand prix victory in Hungary.
Piastri became the 115th grand prix winner after leading the majority of the race until the final stint.Norris undercut his team mate by pitting earlier, putting him into the lead. Norris appeared to resist calls from his team to let Piastri by until he eventually did so with three laps remaining, allowing Piastri to win his first grand prix.
Lewis Hamilton claimed the final podium position in third, but is under investigation for a clash with Max Verstappen in the later laps.
At the start, Piastri managed to get up the inside of his pole-winning team mate on the run to turn one and reached the apex with Norris alongside him. Verstappen was also outside of Norris had to run off track as they rounded the corner, but the Red Bull accelerated and emerged ahead of Norris into second place.
Verstappen was encouraged by his team to hand back the position to Norris, which he did at the start of lap four. Piastri led his team mate through the early laps, until Lewis Hamilton became the first of the leaders to pit for hards at the end of lap 16, which caused McLaren to bring Norris in at the end of the next lap.
Piastri pitted from the lead on the next lap, emerging ahead of his team mate. Red Bull kept Verstappen out until the end of lap 21, meaning he rejoined behind Hamilton in fourth place. Piastri reclaimed his lead and continued to head his team mate, but lost three seconds of his advantage by running wide at turn 11.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Despite closing under two seconds of the leader, Norris was unable to get close enough to challenge. Eventually, McLaren called in Norris at the end of lap 45 for a second set of mediums, before Piastri pitted for the same two laps later.
Piastri emerged behind his team mate, who had undercut him with his earlier stop. Norris inherited the lead when Verstappen pitted, but was then asked to allow Piastri back into the lead when it was “convenient” for him to do so.
Norris continued to lead as his advantage over his team mate grew. Despite repeated pleading from race engineer Will Joseph to obey the instruction to allow Piastri to pass, Norris appeared reluctant to do so. Eventually, with three laps to go, he pulled aside on the pit straight and slowed to allow Piastri back into the lead with three laps remaining.
Piastri completed the final laps to claim his maiden grand prix victory by two seconds, with Hamilton in third, 12 seconds behind. He and Verstappen collided at turn one as they fought over the position, which pitched the Red Bull into the air, though both were able to continue. The stewards will investigate the incident.
Charles Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari ahead of Verstappen, with Carlos Sainz Jnr in sixth ahead of Sergio Perez, George Russell and Yuki Tsunoda with Lance Stroll claiming the final point in tenth, just ahead of team mate Fernando Alonso.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
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
joe jopling (@jop452)
21st July 2024, 15:58
The wrong winner…but a very good race..
André
21st July 2024, 16:18
Norris wasn’t smart. If he had given the position back right away, he would have had enough time to overtake Piastri and win.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:23
They told them that they would not be allowed to fight it out on track between them after mid 40s in laps, i.e. after the pitstop.
Sup
21st July 2024, 18:17
Definitely not the wrong winner take of your british hat off and stop talking nonsens kid. Piastri deserved the win and norris only got in front because of stratagy decisions so stop talking nonsens
AlanD
21st July 2024, 20:50
If someone disagrees with you, you dismiss it as British bias and try to belittle the person. That’s not very smart.
Doh
22nd July 2024, 0:12
Piastri barely celebrated himself he knows lando was faster
Mayrton
22nd July 2024, 8:58
Absolutely staged victory for Piastri. Shame on McLaren for insulting both their drivers at the same time. Steiner would say they looked like a bunch of …
HAL
21st July 2024, 20:53
Why wrong winner ? You think this was Lando last chance of victory because he’s been beaten by his younger, less experimented teammate who as faster for 2/3 rd pf the race ?
I think you might be exagerating, I still believe Norris can beat Piastri without his team giving him the cutover and handing him the lead. I believe in him.
AngusB
22nd July 2024, 4:03
I think the right winner won. Piastri made a great move on Lap 1 to secure track position. On two occasions the team asked him to give up his pit call priority to help Norris avoid the undercut with Hamilton. He agreed without complaint. We can see from the Hamilton/Verstappen battle and the Russell/Bittas/Tsunoda battle how important track position was. By doing so Piastri lost 5 secs to Norris. Had Piastri gone in first he would have been further ahead and very difficult to overtake. Norris would have known all this and it is a shame he has detracted from Piastri’s big moment.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:02
Wow. McLaren in mourning mood after scoring 1 and 2… Norris: huge questions about his race starts and racing ability compared to his peers, but he was faster in the final stint and really earned the win I felt. Piastri’s first win was handed over through the worst team order in a long time. Verstappen lost the plot on the radio with his team and eventually on the track, lucky McLaren wanted to be in self-destructive mode and decided to alleviate the points loss to Norris.
This is great Formula 1 entertainment though! Even on a relatively dull track.
Ajaxn
21st July 2024, 16:33
Now that’s what i call Pod Racing.
Congratulations to Piastri and McLaren.
Congratulations to Hamilton and his 200th podium.
Wow. Loving that dual between Hamilton and Verstappen. Less than a week ago we had that article stating Hamilton’s driving style wasn’t suited to the new car regulations. Before Silverstone, there was talk of Hamilton no longer having what it takes. I think we can put both of those claims behind us.
I have to say, if that dual had been between Russell and Verstappen, its unlikely that Russell would have held Max up as well, let alone better him. Verstappen should have had that race but ended up outdoing himself.
What a fantastic couple of races we’ve had, I hope this continues.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:46
I’ve been enjoying the races since Imola (Monaco aside), a much better season than seemed possible!
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:51
The season really has come alive after the first few!
Red Andy (@red-andy)
21st July 2024, 19:00
On your last point, I find the Hungaroring is one of those tracks that often serves up more entertaining races than it ought to, given its drawbacks (layout and narrowness). The opposite of somewhere like COTA, which has basically been designed to be the “ultimate” F1 circuit but is generally rather dull racing-wise.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 0:19
I think in this era of easy drs passes, tracks like the hungaroring where you have to earn them are very important, I by far prefer a race like this than races where lots of motorway passes happen.
Jordan (@hunkulese)
22nd July 2024, 0:19
It wasn’t handed to him. Piastri sacrificed quite a bit of time to let Norris pit before him because it would make it easier for Norris to stay ahead of Hamiltion. Piastri would’ve probably won easily if he had pitted before Norris, but it made more sense for the team for Norris to pit first. If anything, if Norris had won, it would’ve been handed to him and not on merit.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 0:21
Exactly, though it’d have been more interesting if he had let piastri by immediately and then spend the last 20 laps trying to overtake him, but from what I read above mclaren forbade that.
Kribana (@krichelle)
21st July 2024, 16:03
Okay so why Leclerc pitted when he had better tyres than Verstappen??? At least Perez now has finished in P7 and not out of the points.
anon
21st July 2024, 16:21
@krichelle I think it was because Leclerc had also closed up to within undercut distance of Hamilton, so they went for a more aggressive pit stop strategy.
They probably were hoping that Leclerc could get track position ahead of both Hamilton and Verstappen, and hopefully with Hamilton ahead of Verstappen. Ferrari probably hoped Leclerc might then have been able to build enough of a lead to stay ahead of at least Hamilton, and perhaps even ahead of both drivers if Verstappen lost enough time fighting with Hamilton.
I can see the logic in the gamble – they could gain a position or two if it went right, but would not really lose anything if it didn’t work out (5th was already pretty secure). It didn’t work out given Hamilton pitted on the same lap as Leclerc, so they failed to undercut him, but it also didn’t cost the team anything in the end.
Keithedin
21st July 2024, 17:37
Yeah I think they were going for the double undercut, but imo it was still ill-advised. They were giving up Leclerc’s large tyre advantage by doing so, and even if they had undercut both, Leclerc would then have to defend from them on older tyres in the final stint, instead of hunting them down or even holding out on a one stop.
In any case, if they wanted to try the double undercut, the call should have been ‘only pit if both Lewis and Max stay out’.
David
21st July 2024, 16:05
So many people saying Lando earned victory….he was handed track position on a platter through team strategy on a track where position is king.
If anything, he doesnt deserve the win because he lost track position in first corner.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:13
But he was faster over the race, which is what counts for the race…
Big question: should Norris have ignored the team order? I think this was badly managed from the pit wall. First it was weird they pitted Norris first and gave him the undercut. Second having messed up, it felt to me that their best option was to accept the blame and apologize to Piastri. Far far better than what Norris had to endure on the radio, forcing a driver to give up a 5 second lead, tainting Piastri’s win, and above all losing what could be extremely valuable points in a drivers championship.
Norris knew all that and relented. Would a Verstappen or early career Hamilton? Or Russell? I don’t know. There are critical moments when you have to show some ruthlessness. Norris claiming those points for himself would have been a signal to his team that he wants to take the fight to Verstappen in the second half of the season. He can calculate that perhaps this will give him some leeway should he need Piastri’s help in later races, if he needs those extra points. But it’s one of those critical decisions where the future implications are uncertain.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:43
Some solid points there David BR. However I present a slightly different view here.
NOT giving up is exactly what many here too often criticize Ocon for. And you are certainly right that Verstappen wouldn’t have given this up (remember the crash between him and Ricciardo in Baku when it was on the cards?), I am pretty sure Russel would have not given up, nor would Hamilton.
But then again, Norris is a very different driver. To me the key was in the interview where Barretto asked Norris about the decision after the race and Norris saying he thought a lot about it and tried to look at it from Piastri’s point of view and decided giving up the lead was the right thing to do. And in doing so, he also shows he really IS a team player, proves it to Stella, and Zak, and in the end to Oscar. I found that a positive point of view to take on it. It also shows he trusts the team that they WILL be in this position more often and actually fight for that title together.
I do think that the team made a mighty mess trying to play things safe with that pitstop on track but putting this burden on Norris on his engineer etc. instead of having just pitted the first guy out there first. But when I just heard Stella say something about this also having been somewhat of a “learning moment” for Joseph to deal with this difficult situation, hm, I am not sure I agree that was a good thing.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:52
@bascb Yes, I agree actually. Norris is a different kind of driver. Is Piastri a team driver? Hmm. I suspect he’s more of the other persuasion! But in terms of championship calculus, Norris probably made the right call, he needs a united team behind him and giving Piastri his first race win won’t be a negative from that viewpoint.
The only question mark for me is whether, ultimately, the team themselves don’t think or conclude that a bit more ruthlessness (and hunger to win) is what they actually need in their top driver. But for now it’s balanced and Norris still has an advantage on race pace.
Jordan (@hunkulese)
22nd July 2024, 0:24
He was only faster because the team gave Norris the preferential pit stop because it made it easier to guarantee the 1, 2 finish and then he ignored team orders to take it easy on the tires. He took a bunch of risks when it should’ve been an easy cruise for McLaren for the final stint in a race that he wasn’t in a position to win due to his driving.
lynn-m
21st July 2024, 16:14
Lando earned the victory by been faster in the final stint when both drivers were pushing flat out.
McLaren were wrong to pit Lando first but after that if Piastri wanted the win he should have earned it by catching Lando & showing he was the faster driver. But Lando was consistently faster over that final stint & built a 6+ second gap, at that point as far as i’m concerned Lando earned the right to win.
I hope he ends up losing the championship to Max by the points he was robbed of today, would show the team how undeserving of the championships they are!
uzsjgb (@uzsjgb)
21st July 2024, 17:14
There was no reason for either Norris, nor Piastri to go fast in the last stint. The team told both drivers that saving tires was the key to victory. Piastri also knew that Norris had to let him past again, so no reason for him to push. Norris ignoring team orders and pushing has no merit, since we cannot say how fast Piastri could have driven.
HAL
21st July 2024, 20:59
I really don’t understand your logic. So the first 2/3rd of the race counts for nothing ? Logically, Piastri should have had the cutover and would have been like 5 second ahead of Norris. Norris gained 4 second in the last stint…. I mightigly disagree with you (and i’n not counting Norris got the 1st cutover too )
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 0:26
Fully agree with this.
Jordan (@hunkulese)
22nd July 2024, 0:27
That’s not how an F1 team operates. McLaren was right to put Lando first because it covered Hamilton. Lando was only faster because he was ignoring the team asking him to not to go flat out. He was putting uncessesary stress on the car that could effect it in the next couple of races.
Ben
21st July 2024, 16:06
Considering the reputation the Hungaroring has for boring races, this was a great race. Happy for the fans who watched live and Piastri. A great talent and a future world champion. 2024 could be a classic.
DaveW (@dmw)
21st July 2024, 16:06
I’d love an option not to listen to the radios on the broadcast. It’s like kindergarteners arguing at recess. We’ll except for Horner telling Verstappen not to complain about Hamiltons’s defending. Which was a good laugh.
CarWars (@maxv)
21st July 2024, 16:43
The whole generation of F1 drivers has taken lessons from Neymar
KB Davies
21st July 2024, 16:09
Another race showing Verstappen really hasn’t grown up. It is the car that masks his immaturity.
He truly can’t drive without hitting anyone, unless his car is 3s faster than everyone else.
Imre (@f1mre)
21st July 2024, 16:25
It was disappointing to listen to his behaviour again.
Racing-wise, at least he tried…
Osnola
21st July 2024, 17:29
Well, to be honest. It was Hamilton who hit verstappen. Not the other way around..
Compared with the austria incident ham deserved a penalty.
Carsten Nielsen (@carstenb)
21st July 2024, 17:46
What are you on about? Hamilton had turned in when Verstappen arrived with locked brakes. Hamilton would have had to turn the steering to the left to avoid the arriving – out of control – Verstappen.
AlanD
21st July 2024, 20:55
LH had left far more than a car’s width on the inside. It was MV who was locked up and moving away from the white line.
MadMax (@madmax)
21st July 2024, 21:44
still can handle that HAM beat your idol in his rookie season? or whata the reason of your blind hate?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 0:29
In performance terms, hamilton matched alonso in the first season, we shouldn’t care who was ahead or behind in the standings, they had the same point, so their performance, assuming equal reliability, must’ve been even.
SteveP
22nd July 2024, 22:34
China – totally unexplained instructions from the team to stay out on massively worn tyres until they were useless for slowing and taking corners (and the pit entry is a tight one)
There was some seriously dodgy stuff happening in the garage involving the Alonso entourage.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 0:29
points*
Anthony
22nd July 2024, 20:31
Total boolocks re your comment on Hamilton, Osnola. Are you blind/ Please remove the rsoe coloured Verstappen sniffing glasses from your face. LOL
T
21st July 2024, 16:10
shambolic driving from Max
Just utterly abysmal
Condolences to Lando, this is what? The second race win the team has actively held away from him. Monza 2021 and this
This doesn’t even make sense as a team game play: the team game play would have to been to let lando keep his p1, it hurts his rival more and it doesn’t matter whoever secured p2 as long as it was another McLaren driver. You’d bag the max points as a constructor either way.
We have witnessed a championship lost on a single point and a points tie going into the last race. Whose idea even was this?
DaveW (@dmw)
21st July 2024, 16:18
If Verstappen finishes fifth a few more times, yeah McLaren may regret this. Then again Lando would have a lot of his own errors to regret as well.
The season really changed its complection when Verstappen hit Hamilton. You have clearly a team now with one decent driver but who is error prone and a car that is not the fastest. RBR is in trouble.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:25
The silver lining for Red Bull is that at least Perez did a very decent race without any mess-ups bringing home a 7th.
SteveP
21st July 2024, 16:51
After starting 16th because… he messed up in Q1
Not quite the lack of mess-up that RBR would be asking for.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:52
No, but at least a bit of a silver lining he was a dependable pair of hands on Sunday with Verstappen riling himself up as much.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 0:31
Bascb, even with all that happened to verstappen he was still ahead of perez though, so I think dependable is a bit much.
Daniel
21st July 2024, 17:51
I believe McLaren is all-in for the Constructors Championship and gave up on the Drivers, which means they don’t believe Norris is capable of beating Verstappen this year with this points deficit.
Jere (@jerejj)
21st July 2024, 16:12
I’m happy Piastri finally got his maiden Grand Prix victory, although the swap would’ve been avoided had he pitted a lap later instead of two laps later.
Yet another collision between the 2021 championship contenders, albeit Red Bull Racing’s strategic decisions were unusually subpar.
Craig
21st July 2024, 16:12
Just wanted to give a shout out to Crofty and his anti-Max commentary which was in full flow today.
The amount of snide comments about Max’s attitude and radio messages was embarrassing, like you can literally hear in Croftys tone of voice how much he hates Max Verstappen. We get it, you hate him for winning the title in 2021.
I’m not a Max fan but I actually enjoy his rants over the radio – some people just like to vent and for me it makes the race more entertaining the way he expresses his anger. If the drivers all had the same personality it would get boring pretty quickly.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:16
Maybe so, but to be fair his own engineer was clearly fed up with Max. Twice he refused to back him when he was racing Hamilton and eventually was implying Verstappen’s complaints were childish.
André
21st July 2024, 16:20
.. which they were.
Craig
21st July 2024, 16:24
I agree that Max had slightly lost the plot towards the end of this one, but I feel a commentator should be a bit more professional in their statements… Crofty literally brought up Max’s sleeping pattern four times during the race.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:30
OK, as I said below, I was actually on the F1TV commentary as usual – precisely because I find Crofty and Brundle annoying to an extreme. I just meant it was quite a radio performance today from various drivers and engineers. Max ploughing into Hamilton with a lockup was evident exasperation, but not particularly sensible.
nunof
21st July 2024, 18:58
Mate, what are you actually complaining about? You agree VER didn’t behave as he should (some could argue he was unprofessional with a fellow workmate), the Sky Sports commentators commented about with some anecdotal remarks (actually based on facts, by the way) as they usually do to. Why do you hold sport commentators on that high standard? Where did you get that they ought to be unbiased? They aren’t, they aren’t required to be and if it’s to your disliking, as others mentioned, F1TV have a different style. I guess some people enjoy the meta-race…
lynn-m
21st July 2024, 16:21
his snide remark about him been grumpy because he was up late playing video games was especially pathetic.
I think Sky’s coverage has just gotten worse and worse which is why i’d usually watch using the far superior F1TV commentary but this weekend i had some VPN issues which meant I had to go back to Sky and get reminded at just how awful their coverage is.
The F1TV commentary is so much more insightful and they are far quicker to pick up on things as well as giving far more detail when discussing things as well as calling the action they see rather than going on the silly rants & pushing agendas like Sky/Croft always do.
Like I agree with Croft about track limits for instance but the way he always just rants about it and then makes a huge deal out of even minor track limit violations in practice and even pre-season testing when it doesn’t really matter just got irritating. Same with his constant rants about drivers changing helmets among other things.
he’s just an awful commentator who constantly mistakes his own opinion for facts.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:27
I agree and stick to the F1TV coverage always. So I’ve no idea what Croft said :)
However, the tastiness of his remarks was pointed out, as Joylon Palmer said (I think) the race wasn’t an ideal bonding session between drivers and engineers at Red Bull or McLaren…
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:34
I am so happy that i can also stick with the F1TV team yeah. Having DC there today really added a very interesting point of view on the issue today too!
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 16:54
@bascb Yes, DC saying in retrospect, he wouldn’t have given back the place was a fascinating snippet given the questions clearly being mulled by Lando.
Justsomeone
21st July 2024, 17:26
@DavidBR, probably because Coulthard is still miffed after all these years about him giving Hakkinen the win due to… circumstances.
David BR (@david-br)
21st July 2024, 18:06
@Justsomeone Sorry to say I’d have to look it up! Not sure what DC was talking about to be honest.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
22nd July 2024, 8:32
He had to do it twice, in successive races. Jerez 1997 Coulthard let Hakkinen through to honour a pre-race agreement between McLaren and Williams – not sure how the order of the McLaren cars mattered on that day but apparently it did.
Then in Australia 1998 Hakkinen led Coulthard all the way until he was inadvertently called into the pits by his team; Coulthard them slowed to let Hakkinen back through with three laps to go.
mbr
21st July 2024, 17:26
To this day, the only driver that constantly changed helmets was Vettel. Yet we have a rule restricting helmet changes because Croft is that terrible.
Bertie
21st July 2024, 16:50
Meanwhile DC is calling Fernando a ‘petulant teenager even in his 40s’. Both commentary tracks were unbearable today and are unbearable in general because of these two.
Edvaldo
21st July 2024, 16:15
My God what a mess has Mclaren done today.
They wanted Norris to win but realized they were being dirty with Piastri and changed their minds.
And had Norris immediately complied and giving him the place back. he would’ve many laps to complete an overtake an win.
What a trainwreck of race management.
As for Hamilton and Max, in other times it would be just a racing incident as Max overshot his line, but nowadays i wouldn’t be surprised if Hamilton gets a penalty.
Alberto
21st July 2024, 16:25
That is not what happenned. Sounds like you haven’t watched the race. Watch the replay and Stellar’s interview at the end especially when he was commenting about Max/Hamilton incident.
If they didn’t trust their drivers they wouldn’t have done this strategy to secure 1-2.
Edvaldo
21st July 2024, 16:29
It took way too much begging for someone they trust, didn’t it?
PB
21st July 2024, 17:29
What did Stella say about verstappen/hamilton?
Alberto
21st July 2024, 19:09
He said they had to pit Norris first because they were worried there would have been a wheel to wheel racing with Hamilton or Verstappen which would have resulted in an incident even though Mclaren was faster. They wanted to avoid a similiar incident to what happenned betwen Ver and Ham.
debaser91
21st July 2024, 16:35
Yeah that’s not what happened, Max was going far too fast going into turn one, if Hamilton hadn’t been there is zero chance he would have stayed on track. He was in a bad mood all race and lost his temper, meaning he tried a ridiculous move.
Ajaxn
21st July 2024, 17:11
yeah, I thought that too.
Had Norris given up the place immediately to Piastri, they could have raced to the end with enough laps for DRS to have made the difference. The fact that Piastri went off into the gravel didn’t help his cause, that was the perfect time to give back the place, when his tires were messed up.
Stephen Taylor
21st July 2024, 16:18
Wow McLaren made a right mess of inter-team strategy there . Giving the second car on the road pit stop to protect from a very slim undercut threat at 2nd stops just didn’t make sense and is exactly what put them in that awkward positon of Norris undercutting Piastri . Unless there was a pre-race agreement that whoever get to turn 1 of the first lap wins I don’t see any other reason for Lando to cede position once he’s in front. I hope Lando in the post race briefing says never ask me to cede the lead to my team mate again if i’m in a winning position. Lando was very gracious to move over at all.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
21st July 2024, 16:27
McLaren is starting to look like a team that doesn’t know what it has and what it can do with it. It’s like Haas suddenly having a championship winning car.
How can you mess up a certain 1-2 this way? And go home feeling like this?
It’s their own fault. Way to taint a first win! Oscar didn’t deserve that… He’s played the game himself, he’s been on the receiving end of bad calls. Lando too could’ve backed off with 20 laps to go and beat Oscar to the flag anyway if he wanted to make a point.
A whole mess. Delightful too, as it makes this season even better than it is.
Ajaxn
21st July 2024, 17:13
Piastri’s first win, I think they had to given him that.
Francesco (@schivo69)
21st July 2024, 16:27
McLaren messed up and tried to put a patch on it…
Result: everybody unhappy…
Paul
21st July 2024, 16:29
Lando showed his true snake colours. He was given the undercut twice and then sulked and ignored doing the right thing and giving the place back on a track where the undercut is so strong and position is key.
McLaren shouldn’t give Lando the preferred strategy when Piastri was leading in both occasions.
Prab
21st July 2024, 16:43
Seriously. McLaren made the mistake of pitting Lando first for the final stint.
Also, I mean, how are many comments here saying that Lando could have won by overtaking if he was pitted later in the final stint. That is such nonsense. No way would have Lando overtaken Oscar.
I remember one time Max was 1.7s faster than Leclerc when he was catching him yet he still took a couple of laps to overtake him.
Oscar is a great talent and even a better lad. Gives me Federer vibes.
Bertie
21st July 2024, 16:52
How is Lando the snake? He is racing for the win and he isn’t dictating strategy, it’s his stupid thing team who are allergic to favoring Piastri in pit order even when Piastri is the rightful racer in track to get them
Pete
21st July 2024, 18:18
He did show his full colours. He did what Hamilton, Max, Vettel, Schumacher, Alonso and Senna would have never, ever done – hand the position back. You don’t win Championships being a nice guy.
MichaelN
21st July 2024, 18:52
Maybe, but at the same time: would those guys all have won only one race this year in that McLaren?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 1:28
This isn’t completely right: hamilton handed a place back to bottas when he was behind in the championship race in 2017, that was very sporty by him. Coincidentally, was right in hungary.
BasCB (@bascb)
21st July 2024, 16:33
It’s interesting to see that now that Red Bull are not clearly ahead on car pace and feeling the pressure their perfect strategy record starts to crumble too.
I get that it’s frustrated to see your huge lead dwindling, maybe Max needs to talk with Jenson Button about riding such a development out in a calm and distinguished way!
With the McLaren team strategy – I guess they just felt like being overly careful to avoid any setbacks and not give other teams a chance. But in reality it was a mess pitting Lando first for that second pitstop and then instead of just telling it how it was, coming up with these “you need to save tyres” BS that everyone who even remotely follows F1 knows is them not being open about what they are saying.
I do think that Piastri will have to feel some obligation towards Norris for being given back the win. And with Norris, while I get the “a driver wouldn’t just give up a win” and you never know whether you really get another chance vibes, I feel that Norris is the better sportsman and team-player as well as human for playing along in the end.
When interviewed after the race by Barretto from F1TV he mentions thinking about it and trying to see it from Ocscar’s point of view and deciding that it was the right thing to do, tears welling up in his eyes, adding that it was hard.
MichaelN
21st July 2024, 18:57
I was surprised to hear the straight up sarcasm coming out of Verstappen’s engineer in regards to him pushing straight out of the pits. Having a disagreement is one thing, especially when Verstappen gets a bit grumpy, but what did they think was going to happen by handling it like that? Keep it for the debriefing.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 1:32
Yes, it’s not even the first time I hear his engineer making snide comments, I think in spa maybe last year there was something like it too.
Pinak Ghosh (@pinakghosh)
21st July 2024, 16:34
Norris should have held his ground and taken the race win. Champions do not move over when they are in the race lead.
debaser91
21st July 2024, 16:39
If he does that, he instantly poisons the relationship with the team and his teammate. The team messed up hugely today but after the order was (finally) given you cannot ignore it.
asz
21st July 2024, 16:41
Problem is, he did just enough to poison it anyway by leaving the switch that late, embarassing the team and making Piastri’s first win feel like a handout, without getting anything out of it.
debaser91
21st July 2024, 17:14
That’s on the team though. They did not give an explicit order until lap 66 or lap 67. Before that we got 20 laps of nonsense about him pushing the tyres too hard and hoping he got the message. Really was poor from the pit wall today.
Pete
21st July 2024, 18:51
How many drivers have won world championships whilst being best buddies with their team mates? That’s all great when you’re finishing 5th and 6th but once you’re fighting for wins, your team mate is just one of the other 19 drivers trying to stop you.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 1:34
With you mentioning 5th and 6th, remember verstappen in brazil with perez: he wasn’t even ok to help him with such a lowly position, when perez was fighting for 2nd in the championship.
HAL
21st July 2024, 21:04
Ok, so Oscar should stop giving the advantage to Norris and disobbey team order next time he is given one. Because this goes both way…
Riker (@corsair)
21st July 2024, 16:37
The British Bias is strong on this site.
Prab
21st July 2024, 16:44
Agreed.
Paul
21st July 2024, 16:57
100%
Lando firstly tried to run his teammate into the wall at the start.
Then was given the undercut TWICE.
Oscar deserved that win and both Lando and Max acted like children that race. Shame n both of them.
David (@nvherman)
21st July 2024, 17:26
Of course the British bias is strong on this site: it’s a British site.
It started life as f1fanatic.co.uk
It may have a new name now, but that’s what it is.
Also F1 is a very UK based sport
SteveP
21st July 2024, 18:13
Er, would that be the British bias that is complaining about Oscar having his win tainted by mismanagement by the team and criticism of a rather petulant Brit that seemed to think that the team mismanagement was done to hand him (the Brit) a win?
That, and criticism of a commentator we all love to hate?
MichaelN
21st July 2024, 16:38
Followed this on the radio, so will be interested to see the highlights on YouTube later.
From what I gathered it was pretty clear that Norris got the preferential pitstop calls despite being in 2nd to cover the other teams behind. That he then ends up in front of Piastri is to be expected when both are on similar strategies and have similar pace. It’s just how the pitstop game works.
To then sulk about not giving back the place when in ‘normal’ situation he’d likely have dropped to 3rd at some point by making a later stop is a bit silly. He won’t have impressed anyone with that in the team. And had he won a couple more races this year, which he probably should have, he’d have been in the position to claim the ‘WDC argument’. But he didn’t, so he wasn’t. Lesson learned, I guess.
Still, it would have been nice to see Piastri’s inevitable first win take place under less contentious circumstances. He doesn’t deserve that.
Edvaldo
21st July 2024, 16:45
Everybody knows Norris is faster than Piastri on pace. But he keeps messing his starts and making dumb moves (squeezing Piastri and leaving the outer line to Max was Ocon’s levels of team mate) and seeing himself behind Piastri.
It’s not the first, not second and not third time they invert the cars to help Norris. With Piastri leading the race on merit, they should’ve avoided this situation at all costs, but they didn’t. Even if Piastri won the race, it does not feel as special as it should if this had not happened. All of that because they were covering Hamilton who was no threat.
They have a long way to the top as a team, still. The car is there already, but they’re too tentative with their decisions.
A great result that they won’t even enjoy fully because of themselves.
DaveW (@dmw)
21st July 2024, 17:03
Key point. Trying to cover Hamilton was ludicrous. He was not going to undercut Norris from that far back. And even if it was a threat or if you’re worried about an SC stop Piastri first. They had enough time to put both and still cover Hamiltons undercut with Norris too.
MichaelN
21st July 2024, 18:48
I’d disagree, but that might be because of all the sportscars I follow. Changing the cars around is no big deal when everyone is playing for the team. Norris’ recalcitrance and his snide remark about the team having to pit Piastri first in a ‘not my problem bro’ kind of way is not going to sit well with a lot of people. And having since heard the team radio in the official Highlights clip, I’m both surprised and impressed by the very clear language used to set Norris straight.
Norris has to do what he is told, or consistently perform at a level where his concerns are given priority. And he hasn’t.
Edvaldo
21st July 2024, 20:23
I would agree with that if the driver was not Norris and the position wasn’t first place.
This guy didn’t taste success yet, he won just one race, has been close numerous times and came up short. Now it was right in front of him again, finally.
Of course asking him to relinquish the lead would be touchy and it was as he was faster than Piastri and much closer to Max on the standings. Other than fixing the avoidable situation they caused, inverting the cars again made no sense, it only take from Piastri’s performance today.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 2:10
Piastri’s awesome race was basically ruined when they gave the undercut to norris, he wouldn’t have been happy to come home second either, they should’ve just given the undercut to piastri.
CarWars (@maxv)
21st July 2024, 16:38
Hope Lando doesn’t come 7 points short at the end..
Red Andy (@red-andy)
21st July 2024, 18:42
If he does, they could look at Montreal or Silverstone, where the team threw away likely wins, or even Austria, where a bit more circumspect driving might have delivered a lower points swing to Verstappen (even though the incident wasn’t Lando’s fault), before they look at this race.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 2:13
Like red andy said, there’s plenty of other occasions where they lost as many or more points with norris and at least they did the right thing in this case to fix their mistake of giving the undercut to norris.
Makes more sense to me to consider the title lost because of one of those other occasions, rather than this where it was fair to give the place back.
Alonslow
21st July 2024, 17:05
Anyone that think that Lando got robbed is either a Lando fangirl or has too much British patriotism.
Lando was favored with the undercut twice, that’s the only reason he got 1st, Lando fans got to understand he may very well have been the faster driver today, but being a bit faster while running in dirty air is not enough, Lando never showed the pace to actually even try to overtake Oscar, the pace he could show in clean air was faster than Piastri sure but he once again lost that track position in the first lap.
This is not the same as that Monza 2021 race, there he had the pace to win, here he was never really a threat, always around +2s never even got DRS, Lando himself lost the race in that turn 1, the team gave him the strategy to retake 1st and the team took it away.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 2:16
Yes, agree with this, very well put when you mention he lost the race at turn 1, was given it back via strategy and then they rectified their mistake.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
21st July 2024, 17:07
I think something else to look at is that had Piastri not made the few mistakes he did today the team pitting Lando first wouldn’t have become the issue it did.
Piastri had I think an 8-9 second lead in the mid phase of the race & lost it all by running wide at turn 9 which put Lando within 1.5 seconds. And then as he was starting to build the gap again I think he made another small mistake as Lando was back within 1.5 seconds before the final stops.
And then after the final stops not only was Lando a bit quicker but Piastri also seemed to make another few little errors which allowed Lando to build a 5-6 second gap. I think a lap after the final stop when he was initially told they were going to swap placed Lando said that Piastri needed to catch him to swap places but instead Piastri started to drop back & as the gap continued to grow Lando started to fight the order more & more.
Ultimately I don’t think the team needed to stop Lando first as there was never really any serious threat from behind. Had they pitted Piastri first & Lando the next lap I still think he would have come out 5-6 seconds ahead of Lewis. So pitting Lando first & giving him the undercut was the teams mistake but again had Piastri not made mistakes that he made which allowed Lando to get within 2 seconds of him at that point of the race then the team pitting Lando first wouldn’t have been an issue as Piastri would have been far enough ahead to be able to avoid been undercut.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 2:20
You’re exagerating the peak gap he had, I gave a look again now, never saw anything higher than 4,5 sec ahead for piastri, looks to be in the moment of the race you say, but it’s only half the amount you said.
Leo B
21st July 2024, 18:02
1 Norris would not have been ahead except for the undercut
2 Piastri was clearly the faster of the two for most of the race
3 Piastri zipped past Norris at the start and built a large lead that was lost only by the undercut
I rest my case.
grat
21st July 2024, 18:51
Verstappen was his own worst enemy in this race.
Biggsy
21st July 2024, 22:21
Red Bull was outscored not just by McLaren, but by both Ferrari and Mercedes.
One driver can’t help crashing in qualis, while the other one can’t help crashing in races.
Max might somehow sustain his lead (not with this kind of driving), but Red Bull’s WCC is seriously under threat.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd July 2024, 2:22
Yes, and at last mclaren is no longer behind ferrari in the constructor’s championship, was quite silly to see the currently 4th best team “chasing” red bull and the current best team in 3rd place, now they’re directly behind red bull, around 50 points, which in the constructor’s doesn’t take a lot to recover: perez is perfectly capable to score 0 points in a given race, a retirement for verstappen with mclaren’s current performance could erase the gap in a single race.
David
21st July 2024, 22:50
Sorry slightly offtopic, but:
– Fernando, Stroll is faster you
– Chara!
Craig S
22nd July 2024, 2:07
Wow, McLaren. I’m impressed. You’ve somehow DEVOLVED from letting yourself get undercut, to now undercutting YOURSELVES! Bravo. Your strategy has been a clown show all year, but this was something else. Sack off your incompetent “strategists” and hire some people who actually know what the hell they are doing. Because it’s BEYOND embarrassing for you guys now.
Anthony
22nd July 2024, 20:36
Max did not “win” the 2021 WDC. Hamilton was cheated by the blatant and biased change in racing rules by the FIA ( in the form of Masi) and thus Vertsappen was literally given the WDC in 2021. Let us get the facts straight. Just saying LOL !!o