On Oscar Piastri’s day to shine at the Hungarian GP, McLaren’s failed strategy suddenly handed Lando Norris the race lead during the closing stages of the race. However, Norris showed the ultimate team spirit, obeying McLaren’s team orders and giving P1 back to the driver of the day. The Briton, who considers himself a championship contender against Max Verstappen, lost 7 points because of this position swap. Though he found himself “going pretty crazy” thinking about the championship, Norris also admitted that this race was never his to win.

Piastri, who became F1’s 115th winner with his maiden victory, led most laps in Hungary. But, in lap 45, Andrea Stella & Co. boxed Norris two laps before Piastri to cover Lewis Hamilton‘s threat behind. In doing so, they accidentally executed a successful undercut with Norris inheriting the lead. But the young Aussie was promised he’d be let by when it was safe to do so. This wasn’t as easy because Norris’ focus was on reducing Verstappen’s 84-point lead in the championship, which forced his race engineer to do a lot of desperate convincing, and the eventual swap.

In the post-race press conference, after Norris had time to give the situation more thought, his perspective changed. When questioned if McLaren‘s decision was wrong, he simply replied, “No. I mean… I didn’t lose the win there. I lost the win off the line. You know, I had a terrible, not even a terrible start, just a bad start,” he added, referring to losing P1 to his teammate in Lap 1. “Something happened on my second shift and I lost all my momentum. Oscar got to the inside, and that was it. That was that.”

Norris also addressed McLaren’s unintentional undercut after their second round of pit stops. He explained, “So, you know, I got put into the lead rather than wanting to. I feel like we made things way too hard for ourselves and way too tricky for ourselves. We should have just boxed Oscar first and things would have been simple, but they gave me the lead and I gave it back.” “So I shouldn’t have won today. I didn’t deserve to win because of my start and Oscar’s good start and that’s that,” he concluded, putting an end to the topic.

The stars are aligning for McLaren. Their pace has left the oh-so-dominant Red Bull behind. Team Principal Andrea Stella’s leadership has created a cohesive organization, and the drivers have the team’s interest in focus. Piastri also revealed how secure he felt, knowing that his teammate wouldn’t rob him of such a result.

Oscar Piastri had blind faith in Lando Norris to play fair

For the first time in 12 years, McLaren secured a 1-2 in qualifying. Max Verstappen’s threat kept minimizing as Red Bull messed up their pit stop strategies. But the entire surreal fairytale would’ve turned into a nightmare if Lando Norris didn’t cede the victory. But he saved McLaren from having to manage another Ayrton Senna-Alain Prost-like team rivalry.

Talking about his teammate’s respectful gesture post-race, Piastri said, “I don’t think I was really concerned. We’d spoken about it at the timing of the stop that we would sort it back out. I had full trust in everyone in the team, including Lando, that we would make that happen,” he emphasized, showing the lack of a toxic intra-team enmity.

After the Hungarian GP, McLaren overtook Ferrari in the constructors’ championship and is only 51 points short of Red Bull. With Sergio Perez’s performance making no headway, the Woking outfit can easily take this championship home. However, the unrelenting 3-time champ Max Verstappen will be hungry to strike back at the Belgian GP up next. After all, it is his favorite F1 track. But the drivers’ championship is where the more exciting battle is.

Can the MCL38’s newfound superiority help Norris conquer his maiden drivers’ championship in 2024? What do you think? Share in the comments below.