The team orders that hampered McLaren at the Hungarian Grand Prix are still the biggest talking point in the paddock as the F1 circus arrives in Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix. Drivers in the paddock and in press conferences have been asked what they would have done if they were in that position at the Hungaroring, but what do the actual drivers involved think about it days afterwards? Lando Norris explains.
Norris 'not proud' after team orders dominated the headlines
After starting Sunday's Grand Prix in Budapest on pole, it was a perfect chance for the Brit to close the gap to Max Verstappen in the World Championship battle. However, a great start from teammate Oscar Piastri in P2 meant he dived down Norris' inside, taking the lead on lap 1 and continued to lead throughout the race. However, on lap 49, Norris retook the lead after he came into the pits before Piastri, undercutting his teammate and taking the lead.
McLaren ordered that Norris must give the position back to Piastri before the end of the race after making the mistake of not bringing in the Australian first, but as the end of the race drew nearer, the gap between Norris and Piaatri increased, and Norris seemed to be ignoring the requests of his race engineer on the team radio. It looked like McLaren had made a huge blunder, but with three laps to go, Norris slowed down on the start/finish straight to hand the victory to his teammate, taking the shine of the Australian's fantastic performance.
"The fact that I kind of clouded over Oscar's first race win in Formula 1 is something I've not felt too proud about," explained Norris, speaking to several media sources including GPblog in Spa. "The fact that we had a 1-2 and that was barely a headline after the race, the fact that we had a 1-2 and nothing was really spoken about it from that side, yeah that's what I felt worse about."
Norris showed obvious disappointment from this, and it was a disappointing narrative that came out on a brilliant 1-2 for the British team, showing that they have the potential to fight in the drivers' and constructors' championships. Norris knows that these issues need to be handled much differently if they want to challenge for the titles, saying, "It could it have been handled differently from a team and personal side? Yes. I don’t think we’d have been having this conversation now in some ways. Whether people on the outside think or come up with their own stories of what happened and what I would have done and wouldn't have done, that kind of thing. I don't mind about that."
Norris says it was "stupid" to not let Piasri pass straightaway
The Brit is still overly critical about his handling of the situation too, commenting on what he would have done differently if the situation arose again: "Just let him pass straight away. It's such a stupid thing that I didn't because we were free to race. I could have just let him pass and still tried to overtake him, to race him. It sounds so simple now, but it's not something that went through my head at the time. I was just in a good rhythm, and things were going well at the time. As soon as they boxed me ahead of him, I was going to have to let him go. It was a bit silly and dentsy, but I didn't go out."
But coming into Spa this weekend, the 24-year-old and McLaren have spoken about the incident and say it is water under the bridge. "We discussed it, we spoke about it, and both sides could have done things a little bit better and a little bit differently. We had it. We've learned from it and hopefully done better this time," Norris concluded.
It s ok that he realized that he did a mistake..At leat he didn t pass on Verstappen s footsteps who never admitted whe he makes mistakes..
Oscars race pace has stepped up....the gap to lando is much smaller than when the year began...mcl need to figure this out pronto....and lando needs to focus so that more often hes in front...because oscar is not letting up any time soon.
He should never have given the position back.
As I said previously, let's hope it doesn't end up messing with his potential championship win at the end.
5 Poles and zero wins from those poles ,now that's stupid ?
Something he needs to work on for sure. I wonder if they can simulate race starts with other cars around in the sim or if it's time attack style only.
Yes, he should have given the position back quickly and then raced Oscar for the win. But that's hindsight.
Respect Norris. Better to understand late, than never.
Even on this blog I saw way too many people not understanding what is right and what is wrong. I was kinda surprised by it. And no, you don't have to be immoral and take cheap wins to become a champion.
But by not taking those wins, you don't become champion.
The team should not have imposed that order on Lando. Not if they want to have a serious go at the title. It's not as if Oscar has a better chance.
People understand what is right and wrong, and they also understand that a team is going to have to be as selfish as Red Bull is, in order to beat Red Bull.
McLaren cannot, on the one hand, state they have a desire to try and go for the title with Norris and then on the other cost him 7 points because of an agreement.
If McLaren had let Lando win, that win might not have seemed so 'cheap' if it was the difference between him taking the title or not.
Regardless of his chances against Max and Red Bull, McLaren are not going to beat Red Bull if they don't get behind their lead driver.
It's as simple as that.
Now, if Lando was always going to yield to Piastri, he should have done it sooner. Would that have mean he could then attack later? I dunno. Depends on what the team arranged.
McLaren played it wrong by having such an arrangement in the first place.
First I think, Norris will win more when he has Piastri helping him in the future, than making him his worse enemy now.
We don't need to go too far back in history, when McLaren had also the best car, but driver relatsionship broke it all. Alonso and Hamilton. McLaren had rules for them to keep it under control. One race weekend one would start qualy first, next weekend other one would start qualy first.Then in Hungary Hamilton broke these rules, made Alonso his biggest enemy. Both lost the title to Räikkönen who was driving slower Ferrari.
Also Norris didn't lose anything. he was 2nd before the pitstop. And in these scenarios, first driver always gets preferred pitstop.
Also how many fans would have McLaren had after taking first ever win away from Piastri and gifting it to Norris? Probably only english fans would have remained. Rest of the world would have sent weeks and weeks of hate mail to Mclaren.
And only thing I agree is that Norris should have done what team asked, stay behind Piastri after pitstop. And if he then would have overtaken Piastri, nobody would have said anything. Would he had been allowed to do that by McLaren, don't know. But at least it would have been fair.
"First I think, Norris will win more when he has Piastri helping him in the future, than making him his worse enemy now."
Oh I agree. But that potential scenario could have been avoided in the first place by McLaren by either not having a pre race agreement or, better still, pitting Piastri first on the last round of stops.
How did Hamilton break the rules at McLaren? It's the team who decides when each car goes out. The drivers can't just go off their own back. Also it's not a rule, it's an agreement. To this day Mercedes employ the same tactics. Alonso was an enemy to Lewis already by that time. He felt he wasn't treated as a No.1 and instead treated equally.
Also he asked Ron Dennis to unfill Lewis' fuel tank for one of the sessions. Alonso deserved what he got.
Yes first driver gets the preferred pitstop, but in this case McLaren didn't do that. Agreed Norris was 2nd anyway before the pitstops but wasn't he closing in at the time?
From a championship point of view, Lando should have been given that win.
If McLaren cannot be that mercurial, they won't beat Red Bull unless they have a car that will outperform it's rivals like the RB19 did, so it couldn't be caught.
Maybe McLaren also felt they owed Piastri something after leaving him out an extra lap in the previous race which screwed him over in the end. I dunno.
There's the moral side of this which says Piastri should be the winner, and the selfish, championship winning team side that says Lando should have had those extra 7 points and Piastri paid back on another day.
It may come to pass that Norris is a distant 2nd at the end of the season and all of this, in hindsight, will be a moot point.
Don't segregate the English either. You have no evidence to make such claims. It's a McLaren 1-2 either way you look at it.
McLaren put Norris on a strategy where he became the leader and created that scenario themselves. They believed they were covering off Lewis. Well I dunno how much difference that would have made.
I was happy for Piastri to win, I just wish it had been done clean.
This had flashbacks of Austria 2002.
Yes agreed that Norris should have let Piastri by way way earlier. But then would it be team formation or would he have been allowed to attack and risk that 1-2? Who knows.
Well it's done now, McLaren are learning things after every race.
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