Norris' sacrifice makes Piastri a winner as McLaren put Red Bull on notice (2024)

The cruel irony of a sport where competitors race in teams of two is that whenever one driver wins – be it a race victory or a world title – the other must lose.

No matter how gracious any Formula 1 driver is when their team mate collects the race winner’s trophy, that inherent desire to be the one hoisting that prize aloft instead cannot be easily quashed.

So when circ*mstances conspire and leave teams facing the unsavoury prospect of requesting that one of their drivers voluntarily hands over the ultimate prize to the one who is often their closest competitor, conflict is inevitable.

David Coulthard did so for Mika Hakkinen twice in consecutive races in the late nineties – and later admitted he regretted it. Was Felipe Massa ever the same after being told that Fernando Alonso was faster than him at Hockenheim? Was a podium celebration ever more awkward than on that infamous afternoon in Austria back in 2002 after Rubens Barrichello waved Michael Schumacher through?

But when drivers choose to put themselves first, the results are rarely pretty. Sebastian Vettel picked himself over Mark Webber in Sepang, writing the phrase ‘multi-21’ into F1 folklore. Two decades prior, Ayrton Senna’s refusal to respect a pre-race agreement with Alain Prost at Imola was just another rip in their rapidly deteriorating relationship over 1989. And the Hungaroring was the stage where Lewis Hamilton and Alonso’s ill-tempered 2007 season truly turned irreparable.

At least McLaren had plenty of prior experience of flashpoints between their drivers to lean on for when they eventually returned to the front of the field again – half of those famed cases involved their drivers…

The opening races of the 2024 season were lukewarm affairs for McLaren but the team found its form after a successful upgrade in Miami. From Lando Norris’ win in that race onwards, McLaren had the car to win every time, though the Austrian and British rounds well to Mercedes.

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So when Norris and Oscar Piastri secured their team’s first front row lock-out of the V6 hybrid turbo era, narrowly denying Max Verstappen in the process, this was surely their best opportunity of the season so far to join Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes by becoming a multi-win team in 2024. All they had to do, as Piastri put it, was play it ‘smart’ in the race.

McLaren started strong in this endeavour. They did not over-think their strategy for what was set to be a hot and dry race in Hungary, fitting medium tyres to both cars for both cars for the start – as did Red Bull for Verstappen, while many of their rivals followed suit behind. At the same event one year prior, Norris had started ahead of his team mate on the grid but emerged from the first corner behind. Starting from pole in a Formula 1 race for the fifth time in his career – two of which being sprint races – Norris was determined to achieve something he had so far failed to do in his career and convert pole into the lead of the opening lap.

When the lights went out, Norris could tell within the first few metres that his lead was under threat into turn one. He pulled right in an attempt to deny Piastri the inside line, but the second McLaren was already beginning to overlap his own. At the same time, Verstappen was tucked up in Norris’s slipstream before pulling to the left to make it a three-wide affair into the braking zone for turn one.

Norris had to hold his line, with his team mate hugging the inside. As all three rounded the corner, Verstappen could tell there would be no room for him at the exit and took to the escape road, keeping his throttle foot planted as he did so and charging back onto the track ahead of Norris.

Having ‘gained’ a place from Norris, Verstappen came under attack at turn two – not from the McLaren, but Hamilton. The Mercedes tried a pass around the outside but was rejected, holding up Hamilton just enough for Norris to sweep by into third.

Once the leaders settled into their order, the inevitable lobbying over the radio began. Norris was adamant Verstappen should return second place to him. Verstappen insisted he had been unfairly forced off. After reviewing the footage, Red Bull gently suggested to their driver that he should take this one on the chin and allow Norris back through – which he did exiting turn one at the start of lap four, voicing his displeasure over the radio as he did so.

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This meant Piastri’s lead was just over two seconds from his team mate, with Verstappen ahead of Hamilton in third and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr in fourth and fifth. The race was always expected run to a two-stop, but even with the cooler track temperatures, drivers would have to be very cautious about how they used their tyres. Naturally the leaders settled into their rhythm early on, but the McLarens were able to pace themselves slightly faster than Verstappen behind, with the championship leader complaining about the balance of his RB20 fairly regularly.

Despite several runners near the rear of the field opting for early pit stops, it took until the end of lap 16 for anyone near the front to come in. Hamilton pitted for hard tyres, leading McLaren to respond by bringing in Norris – who had been just under five seconds ahead – on the next lap to ensure the Mercedes driver had no chance to undercut him over the following laps. With Hamilton successfully covered, McLaren could comfortably bring Piastri in from the lead on lap 18 and return him to the track still ahead of his team mate.

Red Bull and Ferrari were the last of the leaders to bring their cars in, returning Piastri and Norris to the front but with Hamilton now the nearest to them having jumped Verstappen with his earlier stop. Not exactly thrilled by having lost track position to one of his fiercest rivals, Verstappen channelled his frustrations into hunting down the Mercedes.

For over ten laps, Verstappen slowly reeled Hamilton in, eventually getting within the second he needed to activate DRS on lap 33. Two laps later, the Red Bull began closing on Hamilton down the pit straight, looming large in the Mercedes’ mirrors. Feeling pressured, Hamilton locked up into the first corner, which offered Verstappen a chance to get a better exit and drive around him out of the turn. However, Verstappen’s ill-balanced Red Bull refused to turn into the second corner and the world champion ran off the track, handing his position straight back to Hamilton.

This proved only a temporary reprieve for Hamilton as it was not long before Verstappen soon returned to harass him once again. But rather than ask their driver to continue defending from the Red Bull, Mercedes instead chose to pit Hamilton onto a second set of hards at the end of lap 40, leaving him with 30 laps to cover on his third and final stint.

Once again, Mercedes pitting Hamilton caught the attention of McLaren. Although his squabble with Verstappen meant he had dropped to over 10 seconds from Norris ahead, he was now lapping over a second a lap quicker than McLaren’s second-placed driver.

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Norris gradually fell back from his race-leading team mate after switching onto the hard tyres until lap 33, when a mistake from Piastri through turn 11 caused him to run off track and lose two seconds of his lead to his team mate. Almost as if Norris realised he could apply some pressure to his team mate and offer a challenge for the lead, he stayed within two seconds from then on. But soon McLaren decided it was time to cover the threat from Hamilton once again.

Despite the Mercedes still being well beyond the 20 seconds or so he would need to get under to have a hope of undercutting Norris, McLaren again chose to pit Norris first, at the end of lap 45. They equipped him with a lightly-scrubbed set of mediums, as planned, and returned him to the track with a clear mission.

“The aim here, again, is not to undercut Oscar,” Norris’s engineer Will Joseph informed him. “We want to bring the tyres in to Hamilton who’s just leaving the final corner. Still a long way to go – 24 laps.”

Although the obvious move would have been for McLaren to bring Piastri in on the following lap, the leader was kept out for an extra lap before his stop for scrubbed mediums at the end of lap 47. Norris’s pace on fresher tyres than his team mate, coupled with a slightly delayed right-front wheel during Piastri’s stop, caused the two seconds between them to evaporate and meant that Piastri could only watch as the sister McLaren zoomed passed him on track as he hit the pit exit line.

McLaren knew that Piastri had likely just lost his maiden grand prix victory through no reasonable fault of his own. Facing the prospect of a catastrophic loss of trust from their second-year driver, McLaren’s only option of avoiding a major blow to their intra-team dynamic was to ask Norris to do the one thing that no Formula 1 driver ever wants to be asked by their team to do.

“We’d like you to re-establish the order at your convenience,” Joseph instructed his driver. Ominously for McLaren, he received no immediate reply.

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Piastri, fearing his win had gone, almost threw his entire race away by running out onto the gravel at the exit of turn 12. Despite two-lap younger tyres and having looked fairly comfortable out front over the first 45 laps of the race, Piastri appeared unable to close up the gap to his team mate ahead to offer Norris that “convenient” opportunity to swap the positions.

“I think the dirty air made a big difference,” Piastri later explained after the race. “I think, ultimately, I just wasn’t quite as quick as I needed to be in the last stint.”

As Norris continued to lead, he faced regular calls from Joseph to manage his tyres far more than he was doing. The subtext was clear, but Norris appeared more than happy to continue running at his own pace. As the laps progressed, Joseph’s calls for him to “do the right thing” became increasingly desperate, verging on emotional blackmail in efforts to salvage the situation he had been unwitting placed in by his team. But Norris continued to lead.

While the tension was rising at McLaren, it was boiling over in the battle for the final podium position between Hamilton and Verstappen. The championship leader had spent almost the entire race festering in frustration over the handling of his upgraded Red Bull and his team’s strategy calls. Now he was trying to channel that anger into regaining the place he’d lost to Hamilton.

Verstappen had breezed past Charles Leclerc with little difficulty but Hamilton fought for his 200th podium appearance like it was his first, forcing the Red Bull wide at turn two again. Verstappen’s next opportunity came with DRS down the pit straight at the start of lap 63.

Alexander Albon’s lapped Williams provided an opportunity for the Red Bull to try and catch Hamilton off guard into turn one, but when the Mercedes turned into the corner, Verstappen locked up and hit Hamilton’s front-right wheel with his rear-left, bouncing him into the air. Although both cars were able to continue, the FIA informed Red Bull that F1 medical delegate, Dr Ian Roberts, would request to check Verstappen over after the race following his hard landing.

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But there might need to be psychological intervention necessary after the race at McLaren if Norris continued to refuse his orders to allow Piastri by before taking the chequered flag. By now, there were only a handful of laps remaining for him to do so and Norris’s lead had grown to over six seconds – larger than any lead Piastri had held over him in the first two stints of the race.

Norris had spent 20 laps weighing up what the consequences of ignoring his team’s instructions would be compared to what he could gain. Eventually, at the end of the 67th lap, Norris began easing off the throttle and Piastri’s deficit dwindled. Putting the team before himself, Norris slowed to cruising speed along the pit straight and allowed his team mate to recover his lead with three laps remaining.

The driver who had led the bulk of the race was now back in front once more. Just a year and a half into his Formula 1 career, Piastri was now on course for his maiden grand prix victory in his 35th start.

Although it had not been the circ*mstances in which he would have dreamt of achieving such a feat, Piastri had beaten his team mate to the first corner and remained ahead through the first two stints. Now, rounding the final corner on the final lap, he was being rewarded not just for the risk he took in signing with McLaren two years prior, but for all the sacrifices and efforts he had made in pursuit of his Formula 1 ambitions.

“I said my first dream in my career was reaching F1. The second one is winning a race,” the winner said after the race.

“I’m very, very happy and proud and not just of myself, but everybody that’s helped me get to this position. It took a lot of big decisions at a young age to chase the F1 dream. It’s very difficult to become an F1 driver by staying in Australia, so it meant some big decisions early in life. I’m very, very proud that those decisions have paid off and we’ve managed to make it worth it.”

Although his decision had come late, Norris had saved his team from a crisis. He warmly congratulated his team mate on his victory after taking the flag, then demonstrated with his demeanour in parc ferme that he understood the bigger picture.

“I shouldn’t have won today,” Norris admitted. “I didn’t deserve to win because of my start and Oscar’s good start and that’s that.

“Of course that went through my mind, seven points that I’m going to lose. But I think the real fact is I shouldn’t have almost had them in the first place. So the team were right. And I stand by what they said.”

Norris’ decision was vital for the trust between the two team mates as they prepare to take on Red Bull and Verstappen in the races which lie ahead. He ‘paid it forward’ to Piastri in the expectation his team mate will do right by him if the roles are reversed in the future. Whether Piastri will take quite as long to respond remains to be seen.

Hamilton took third to secure an unprecedented 200th grand prix podium. Despite some uncertainty over whether he would be under threat of a penalty and potentially lose the position to Leclerc, a

A post-race investigation by the stewards resulted in no further action over the clash between Hamilton and Verstappen. The Mercedes driver therefore completed his double century of podiums, followed by Leclerc who picked up fourth while Verstappen rejoined the track.

Verstappen was bitter after finishing in fifth, 21 seconds off the winner. Sainz took sixth, while Sergio Perez won the battle for the best out-of-position starter by rising to seventh from 16th, one place ahead of George Russell who had started behind him.

Yuki Tsunoda made up for his heavy Q3 crash by taking ninth, while Lance Stroll collected the final point after seemingly refusing to honour his team’s instructions to allow Fernando Alonso back through after being let by to challenge Tsunoda.

While Formula 1 now had its 115th grand prix winner – McLaren’s second first-time winner of the season – none of Piastri’s predecessors had secured their first victories under such awkward circ*mstances. After several rounds of missing out on wins, the strained conclusion to the race gave McLaren a sense of losing despite winning.

But through all the agony of those last 20 laps and the relief at the end of it, it was easy to overlook how critical a result this was for McLaren. Red Bull entered the first weekend of the second half of the championship with a 78-point advantage over McLaren in the constructors’ championship. Leaving the Hungaroring, that gap had dropped to 51.

With 11 rounds still remaining and Red Bull’s hurriedly-introduced upgrade not proving the silver bullet they craved, McLaren now have all the momentum they could want to mount a challenge to the world champions over the rest of the season. Time will tell if Norris’s sacrifice will prove to be crucial or costly.